


Dezinformatsiya

by othersideofthis (hikaru)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/M, Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, minor original character death, undiagnosed mental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-27 05:56:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2681648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikaru/pseuds/othersideofthis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(<i>dezinformatsiya</i>: disinformation; the deliberate spreading of false information to mislead an enemy as to one's position or course of action)</p><p>Sidney leads them to a fallen log, just off the bank, still shrouded by trees. They can see the river, but no one can see them. If he were there with anyone else -- if he actually wanted to pursue Zoya the way everyone at work wants him to -- the spot would be romantic. But this is Sidney, and Zhenya knows he can’t have that.</p><p>“Nice spot,” Zhenya announces. He brushes some leaves off of the log then lowers himself to sit. “Very nice. Quiet, you hide back here. Bet you take pretty girls here, be alone.”</p><p>Sidney stops before he sits and looks at Zhenya; the hurt expression that crosses his face slides away so quickly that Zhenya isn’t even sure that he saw it at all. “No,” he says finally as he sits down. “No, only surly Soviet defectors who ask too many questions.”</p><p>(<i>or:</i> Sidney Crosby and the spy who loved him)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dezinformatsiya

**Author's Note:**

> A thousand and one thank yous go to:
> 
> \- chelseaIbelieve, for reading the first pass of this story, when I wasn’t even sure what direction the plot was going in;  
> \- cathedralhearts, for betaing and being some sort of editing-related goddess, who made this story 10000% better than it was before (as usual, I couldn’t resist tinkering, so any mistakes are totally my fault still);  
> \- druidspell, for taking on the task of creating a mix for this story and for in general being an excellent person to shout at about all things hockey; and  
> \- everyone on Tumblr who has sent me asks, liked and reblogged my WIP snippets of this fic, or generally encouraged me to actually write this story. This story has taken on a life of its own ever since I first posted my rambling thoughts about it more than six months ago, and it wouldn’t exist without your encouragement.
> 
> Expanded warnings/possible spoilers for readers: Minor/original character death (off-screen). Gun usage, talk of past violence committed while engaged in espionage. Undiagnosed/unaddressed anxiety/OCD, including depictions of compulsions around routines, order, and counting. Institutional homophobia/biphobia, including scenes where a character’s superior threatens to use purported evidence of his sexuality against him. Additionally, there is a scene that could be considered disturbing, where Character A tries to incite Character B to follow through on orders to kill A. If you would like more information on any of these things prior to reading, please send me a message or leave a comment and I will do my best to help you out.
> 
> There is now some excellent art for this fic! Please [go check it out](http://othersideofthis.tumblr.com/post/105823532070/serve-your-country-well-x) and like/reblog/whatever on Tumblr.
> 
>  _December 2015_ : A note, a year belated. Because it's come up a few times in discussion, aside from Sid, Geno, and Ovi, none of the other characters are supposed to map onto or represent any other NHL/KHL/etc. players. Any similarities in names are accidental on my part.

Inside his family's grimy flat in a crumbling cinderblock complex in Magnitogorsk, Zhenya Malkin’s life is about to change. 

He is nineteen and staring down a General who could crush Zhenya and his entire family with one nod of his head. The General is talking and Zhenya is nodding along, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“This is the right choice for you, Evgeni Vladimirovich,” the General says, reaching forward to clap him on the knee. “You will serve your country well, and make your mama and papa proud.”

Next to him on the sofa, his mama is dabbing at her eyes with a threadbare handkerchief. She hasn’t stopped crying ever since the General sat them all down and said that he would like to take Zhenya with him to Moscow, away from the steel mills and the chipped concrete buildings of Magnitogorsk. He is offering Zhenya a new life, a new future in the ranks of the KGB.

Zhenya doesn’t want to go to Moscow. He certainly doesn’t want to be under the Party’s thumb. He’s heard stories, bad ones, and he already has too many secrets to think he could survive for long in that fishbowl. He wants to stay in Magnitogorsk. He wants to do his time in the military like every other able-bodied man and then come home to take care of his mama, find a wife and start a family, like he’s supposed to.

He _doesn’t_ want to go to Moscow.

“Will you come, Evgeni?” the General asks. He ashes his cigar and Zhenya watches the graying flecks float down to speckle the armrest of his chair, to the rug that he knows his mama has repaired past the point of absurdity because they can’t afford a new one.

Moscow means money, security, a future -- for as long as he can stay alive, at least. And maybe, after he inevitably falls in service to his country, his parents will be provided for, too. He likes to think they’d be protected as friends of the Party rather than just nameless drones in the mill.

Zhenya doesn’t _want_ to go to Moscow, but hereally doesn't have another choice. When the KGB comes to your house, you say yes, no matter what they're asking of you.

“Yes, sir,” he says, reaching out with one large hand to shake with the General. “I will go to Moscow.”

 

*

 

“I very please to meet,” Zhenya grinds out in halting English, grimacing all the while. He knows it’s wrong, he knows the grammar is off, he knows that his pronunciation is terrible, but he doesn’t know how to fix it. Zhenya _hates_ learning English, and he doubly hates learning it with Sasha at his side.

“Zhenya, they’re _never_ going to send you to America if your accent keeps sounding like that.” Sasha speaks in Russian first, then in his own stilted English for good measure.

Zhenya snaps his textbook shut and scowls at Sasha. “I’m not looking to get sent to America, Sasha,” he says. “And your accent isn’t much better, you know.”

“Never mind my problems. You _should_ want to go to America,” Sasha points out. He drops down onto the sofa next to Zhenya and wraps one thick arm around his neck in a headlock. “Just think of all the beautiful American women you can turn down for dates once you’ve run out of girls to reject here.”

“I don’t think that’s a good reason to go to America.” Zhenya elbows Sasha in the side, a little harder than necessary. “And I don’t want to go, anyway.” He elbows Sasha again and finally extracts himself. Zhenya shoots up off of the couch, all gangly arms and legs as he rushes to stand across the room. “They didn’t bring me here all the way from Magnitogorsk just to clean me up and make me pretend to be American.”

In all honesty, Zhenya still isn’t sure what the General saw in him, and he’s been in Moscow for three years already. He has everything he could ever want, ensconced in a flat with other young agents, and he’s learned so much, but he knows he’s not cut out for the life Sasha keeps pushing on him. Everyone he trained with clamors to be remade into an American, a Brit, a German, a Pole: anything for the chance to shed language and culture and identity for the glory of infiltrating the enemy. Zhenya wants to play no such role. He’s more than happy staying in Moscow and taking assignments as they come to him. He’s not interested in uprooting his whole life to play pretend, no matter what Sasha says.

 

*

 

Long after the rest of his friends go abroad to assume new identities and new lives, Zhenya stays in Moscow with Sasha. Staying wasn’t intentional, but he is _good_ at what they need him for there, even if his services are often delivered via brute force and reckless driving.

He doesn’t mind, it’s all fine: no one ever promised Zhenya that he would be a star agent, jetsetting across the globe on clandestine assignments. He never wanted that anyway. He’s a fine marksman and even better with his hands. He’s done things that would make his mama weep, but no one joins the KGB expecting an uncompromised life. The KGB doesn’t recruit you to ask you to kindly file papers and serve tea. If his mama knew what he was getting up to, she would despair for his very soul, but even she wouldn’t have been surprised.

Sasha, meanwhile, is a Deputy Director now, and for as hard as it is for Zhenya to reconcile the man in uniform with his gap-toothed, wise-cracking friend, he also can’t complain about the fact that Sasha has been helping direct his career from the shadows.

“This office should be yours, you know,” Sasha says one day, spinning idly in his desk chair. “Your aptitude test scores have been off the charts for almost ten years, Zhenya. I don’t know why you insist on staying here when you could be seeing the world. Tracking down dissidents in the Motherland can’t possibly be as thrilling as you make it out to be.”

Zhenya shrugs, then tips his chair back onto its rear legs and props his feet up on Sasha’s desk. “Am I not good at my job?”

“The best,” Sasha concedes, “which is why you should have a new one. You could be even better.”

“And be trapped behind a desk like you?” Zhenya scoffs. “I don’t think so. I like where I’m at. I don’t need to see the world. I don’t need any more excitement than this.”

“I don’t know how you manage to be the best _and_ worst at this at the same time.” Sasha stops spinning in his chair and reaches across the desk, pushing Zhenya’s feet back down to the floor. “Do this in someone else’s office and you’d get arrested, you know.”

Zhenya’s feet settle back onto the floor with an exaggerated thump. “Good thing you’re not anyone else, then, isn’t it, Sasha?”

“I suppose.” Sasha shrugs. “Enough of this, though. Are you ready for a new assignment?”

Zhenya rolls his eyes, but Sasha certainly has his attention now. “Since when has it ever been a choice?”

“I thought I’d give you the opportunity to say no, so I can tell everyone later how great I am at convincing you to do things.” Sasha pulls a folder from the top of a stack on his desk and slides it across to Zhenya. “Take a look, say no. You’re predictable, I know you’ll hate this.”

Zhenya takes the folder, flips it open to read the Top Secret memo on top, then snaps it shut and shoves it back across the desk. “I’m not even qualified for this one, and you know it. My scores are great for everything _but_ English, or have you forgotten that particular detail?”

Sasha just shoves the folder right back at Zhenya. “This isn’t even a _true_ illegal resident operation. Did you even read what I handed you, or did you give up as soon as you saw that it’s in America?”

Zhenya flicks a rude gesture at Sasha, but takes the folder again.

“It’s in America, yes, but you’re not going to be one of them. We all know you’d be terrible at that, anyway, your acting is horrible. We need to place someone with the Ambassador. Your English can continue being as terrible as it already is, never fear.”

“Yours isn’t any better,” Zhenya grumbles as he flips through the folder, vaguely interested now that he knows he isn’t going to have to be remade into Michael Stevenson or Richard Mathers, or any other terrible alias they have lined up.

“And that’s why I have this office.” Sasha reaches out and flicks the folder with the tip of his pen. “Listen, the General is going to ask you tomorrow about the job and you’re going to say yes, Zhenya.” He says it with all of the seriousness and authority afforded to his position, then cracks a broad grin. “And then I’m going to take all of Seryozha’s money, since he bet you’d never make it to America.”

Zhenya shoves his chair back from the desk and straightens the back of his jacket. “I don’t know why we’re friends, Sasha.”

“Because someday, you’re going to need me,” Sasha says. “And then you’ll be glad that I’ve put up with you for all these years.”

 

*

 

The General asks, and Zhenya says yes. Sasha is right; he doesn’t really have a choice, so he packs his bags and goes once all of the paperwork has cleared.

There’s an apartment waiting for him in Washington, D.C., along with a car, a bank account and a job. He’s being given everything he could possibly ask for and more.

He’s also been given a handler.

“Are you settling in well?” Pavel asks over tea in his office one morning, a few weeks after Zhenya’s arrival. “No troubles with the apartment or your neighbors?”

“No, everything is fine, Pavel,” Zhenya says. “Everyone keeps to themselves, like you said.” It’s still very early, and Zhenya feels a bit bleary, not all there, but when Pavel says he needs to brief you at eight in the morning, you show up. “Almost like home.”

“Good, good.” Pavel opens a desk drawer and pulls out a folder, then hands it to Zhenya. “You know you’re already being watched?”

“Of course. I was told to expect that right away.” Zhenya takes the folder and opens it. Inside are grainy surveillance photos: Zhenya leaving his apartment building, getting in his car, going into the corner market. He doesn’t remember noticing anything amiss, but he’s not surprised, either, to find all of the photos. Not for the first time, he’s glad that he lives a very dull life. “Are these ours? Or from the Americans?”

“From the Americans. Masha has a contact there.” Pavel makes a grabbing motion with his fingers and Zhenya hands the folder back. “It should only be a matter of time, maybe a few more weeks, until they try to approach you directly.”

Zhenya sits up straighter in his chair. “That soon?” He knows this is why he’s here, to make contact with the Americans, but he expected more time to pass. “What’s their hurry?”

Pavel smiles. “Look at you, did you see those photos?” Pavel opens the folder and tosses a snapshot of Zhenya, trudging to his car, shoulders slumped and hands jammed in his pockets, across the table. “You are playing your role perfectly. You look unhappy and unsure, you’re new to this country and your English is terrible. Your car is old and you live in an undesirable neighborhood. You have nothing, and they will try to woo you by offering you _everything_. Money, cars, women, drugs, anything you could possibly want, they will dangle in front of you. All you have to do is say _yes_.”

“So I just wait for them to come to me?” He’s looking for reassurance that he’s not going to fuck this mission up. He doesn’t doubt that Sasha had his hand in getting Zhenya the assignment, no matter how much he swears he wasn’t involved. There’s a lot more riding on this than just respect and admiration from his superiors, Zhenya knows, and he wants to make sure that he gets all of the details right.

“Yes. Just go about your day. Go to work, the store, out with the secretaries afterwards. Go to bars, maybe even flirt with a few American girls.” Pavel nearly sounds like he’s reading from a checklist, and if the KGB weren’t so averse to putting things in writing, Zhenya wouldn’t be surprised if he _was_. “If you look vulnerable, weak enough, they’ll think you’re ripe to defect, and that’s exactly what we want.”

“What should I be looking for?” Zhenya asks. It’s a rookie question, but then again, he’s new at working overseas. He’s usually the one doing the tailing, not the other way around. “Sasha told me some of what to expect, but with you working on the ground here for so long, well…”

Pavel chuckles. “I don’t know that I would ever consider Sasha a great source of information about America, but we’ll see.” He settles back in his chair and grows serious again. “They study you for so long so that they can send someone who they think will get through to you. They want to soften you up, make you vulnerable. For you… well, they’re not going to send some hotshot, cocky agent after you, not with the way you act.”

Zhenya’s brows furrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You walk around looking so weary, tired, homesick.” Pavel smiles, and it’s not his usual shark-toothed grin that means that someone is going to suffer soon. He actually looks like he’s amused by Zhenya. Zhenya doesn’t know which look is worse on Pavel. “Someone like you isn’t going to react well to someone like that. Don’t be surprised if you’re approached by someone older, calmer. They don’t often use female operatives, but they might find one for you, someone who will remind you of your mother, perhaps. She’ll feed you up real good, take care of you, soften you up so you want to talk whenever she starts asking questions.”

“And then I start answering her questions, right?”

“Right. Masha or I will give you everything you need. They may not ask for much at first, just little details to see how well they can trust you. Tell us what they ask you for, and we’ll give it to you.” Pavel opens a desk drawer and pulls out a postcard, which he hands over to Zhenya. “Keep hold of this. It’s got coordinates for an old dead drop site. We don’t use it anymore, but they don’t know that. Once the Americans reach out and start to press you for information, turn this over, and report back to me. We’ll arrange to leave something at the site so they think it’s still viable.”

Zhenya takes the postcard and flips it over in his hands. There’s a picture of the White House on the front; on the back is a brief note written in Russian, a quick hello to someone’s Aunt Olga. There’s enough space between the lines and in the margins that Zhenya knows a whole separate message is written there in invisible ink, just waiting to be revealed. He tucks the postcard into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “Anything else I should know?”

“As soon as they reach out to you, tell me immediately. I want to know everything about the operative they send, what you talk about, what they want to know.” Pavel leans forward and folds his hands together on his desk. “This is very important, Zhenya. Knowing what they’re asking of you is crucial for us to be able to prepare for the future. The Americans aren’t going to stop, and we need to know what they’re planning. We need to know _everything_ about your contact, do you understand?”

“Yes, Pavel, I understand.” The situation is serious, and Zhenya tries his hardest to show that he understands that. The last thing he wants is for Pavel to think that he’s expendable. Just because Zhenya didn’t want to go to America in the first place doesn’t mean that he’s not determined to successfully complete his mission.

“Good. That’s all for today, then.” Pavel stands, and Zhenya quickly follows suit. “Keep in touch, Evgeni. Your work here will be very important for us.”

“Thank you, sir.” Zhenya reaches out to shake Pavel’s hand. “I will do my best for you, and for our country.”

“That’s all we ask.” Pavel clasps Zhenya’s hand and squeezes hard. It’s almost a warning, Zhenya thinks, as Pavel grins at him, all teeth and menace this time.

 

*

 

Zhenya just wants to get through the pile of paperwork on his desk, but a pair of strong hands grab him by the shoulders. “It’s quitting time, Zhenya! Come out with us.” Kolya shakes him by the shoulders, then releases him to perch on the corner of Zhenya’s desk instead. “You work too much, you never come out.” He starts grabbing at Zhenya’s paperwork, shoving it haphazardly back into different folders.

Kolya’s title on paper is Junior Cultural Attache, but Zhenya is reasonably certain that’s as accurate as his own title of Deputy Assistant to the Ambassador. Whatever it is that Kolya actually _does_ , Zhenya knows that he can’t ignore his invitations to go out with the rest of the office forever, not without starting a few rumors that cut uncomfortably close to the truth.

Zhenya tosses his pencil down and shoves his chair back from his desk, adding extra room between the two of them. “They don’t pay me well enough to go out with you,” Zhenya says, snatching the paperwork back from Kolya to put it away more neatly. “Are you buying?”

“If it gets you to come out with us, I suppose I can.” Kolya grins broadly. “All the girls are going to think you don’t like them, if you always turn down our invitations.”

“Oh, please.” Zhenya rolls his eyes, finishes cleaning up his desk, then stands. “They’re only interested because I’m still new. The rest of you are old and boring.”

Kolya hands Zhenya his coat and hat. “Really? I wouldn’t say that. Zoya and Inga both have had eyes for you since the day you arrived. I’m surprised there’s not a betting pool for which one you’ll take out first.”

“Neither,” Zhenya says, shrugging into his coat and buttoning up. “I came here to work, not for that.”

“Zoya and Inga are good Soviet girls,” Kolya says, leading Zhenya away from his desk and out of the office. “I’m not telling you to settle down with one of them, I’m not stupid. It’s just drinks with a pretty girl and then, who knows.

“We’ll see.” Zhenya makes a noncommittal noise. Kolya’s two favorite subjects are Zhenya’s lack of interest in drinking and Zhenya’s lack of interest in dating, and he’s hitting them both hard tonight. It’s exhausting, and Zhenya already wishes he’d just said no. He could be on his way home instead of following Kolya outside.

They wind up at a bar not far from the office, and Zhenya hardly even has time to start arguing with Kolya before everyone else shows up. Zhenya is overwhelmed by the drinks shoved at him, by Kolya and Seryozha and Ilya and Maks, who are all overjoyed to have finally coaxed Zhenya out. As he nurses his drink, he watches the girls from the office, Zoya and Masha and Inga and Kseniya, clustered around a table. Zoya catches his eye and smiles. Maybe if they were different people, maybe if Zhenya’s life wasn’t what it was, he would cross the room and talk to her, feeling free and easy as he flirted with her, but as it is, all he does is smile back and look down at his drink.

Kolya catches the interaction and slings a heavy arm across Zhenya’s shoulders to pull him close. “I told you,” he says loudly against Zhenya’s ear. “Didn’t I?”

“I never disagreed with you.” He watches as Inga leans over to whisper something to Zoya, and they both laugh. Zhenya smiles then, while their attention is off of him. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to try to start something with any of them.”

“You’re exhausting.” Kolya shoves him on his barstool, and Zhenya grumbles as his drink sloshes out over the rim of the cup.

“And you’re impossible. Stop pushing, Kolya.” Zhenya turns away from Kolya, shoulders curving in as he draws his glass close.

“But if you had to pick one?” Kolya won’t leave it alone, and Zhenya knows that sooner or later, he’s going to have to ask one of the girls out just to shut him up. Zhenya sighs and turns back to look at them. Masha is right out, if only because he sees the way Pavel looks at her when he thinks no one else is watching. He barely knows Kseniya and Inga, but he knows enough to know that they’re not for him, with their blonde curls and big laughs and too many questions.

“Zoya, if you made me choose.” Zoya is _striking_ , if he had to describe her in a word, with her jet black hair, fair skin and ruby-red lips. She works alongside Masha and Pavel and knows full well that Zhenya wasn’t sent to Washington to deal with meetings that the Ambassador doesn’t have time for. The idea of not having to lie to someone about his assignment is appealing, but Zhenya knows, deep down, that he’d be lying to Zoya about more than just his job. Moscow knows most of his secrets, but there are still a few that he holds close. The few secrets that he has left, well, he’s not going to burden Zoya with them.

Kolya laughs, drawing Zhenya out of his thoughts. “You don’t have to sound so disappointed about it, my friend. Zoya’s a beautiful girl.”

“It’s not going to happen, Kolya.” He drains the rest of his drink, then stands up, tossing a few dollars on the bar top as he steps away. “I’m going home. Give my regards to the rest of the group.”

Kolya protests, but Zhenya ignores him as he pulls his coat back on and wraps his scarf snugly around his neck. The whole evening has been too much for Zhenya. Too much to drink, too much pushing by Kolya, too many glances his way from Zoya.

All he wants to do is what he was sent to America for. He wants to do his job, and he wants to get home in one piece.

That’s all.

 

*

 

Zhenya does what Pavel said to do: he lives his life, he lives out boring routines, and he waits for the Americans to come to him.

The longer they take to make contact, the more Zhenya thinks that his whole mission is a bust.

Until one day, Zhenya comes home to find a note wedged up under the door knocker on his front door.

The paper wasn’t there that morning when he left for work. Zhenya sighs. This can’t possibly be good. He plucks the scrap of paper out and unfolds it.

 _Gone to the market_ , the note reads, in cramped, messy handwriting. _Doing some last minute shopping. Meet you there!_

This can only mean one thing: the Americans are finally making their move, and all Zhenya wants to do is sit down and have a drink. With a sigh, he tucks the paper back under the number _7_ above the knocker, then heads back down the hall to the building’s creaky, rickety elevator.

The walk to the market is a short one and he tries not to hurry. He tries not to do anything out of the ordinary, but he knows this is it. He knows he’s about to make first contact with the Americans who are so desperate they’ll follow around a low-level employee in the Ambassador’s house for months on the off-chance that he’ll have anything good to tell them.

In the market, Zhenya picks up a basket and walks the aisles. His tail should be easy to spot, with how small the market is, but all of his attempts to look around just make him look jumpy. The American operative will come to him, he supposes; in the meanwhile, he’s just going to do his shopping.

It’s not until Zhenya is in standing in front of a display of eggs, trying to pick the best looking ones, when a man clears his throat next to him.

“Doing some last minute shopping?” the man says, placing a slight emphasis on the phrase from the note.

Zhenya turns to look at him and is so taken aback that he can’t even play the game that he was sent here to play. The man is shorter than Zhenya, but broader, clearly muscular even under his government-issue suit. His eyes are dark and expressive, and his hair flops down over his forehead when he stoops to reach for a carton of eggs. The man’s full lips curl into a smile as he speaks, but Zhenya doesn’t hear a single word he’s saying.

He can only think that Pavel was so, so wrong when telling him about who the Americans would send to him. He expected someone who could connect with him, get under his skin, make him vulnerable. After all, Pavel told him to expect a middle-aged woman, chosen to remind him of the mama he left behind back in Magnitogorsk when Moscow came calling.

But Zhenya knows instantly that the Americans understand him even better than Moscow does, because they didn’t send him a surrogate mama.

The Americans sent him a man who he wants to take home and _ruin_.

The man flashes a bemused smile at Zhenya, who’s trying so hard to start listening again. He’s still talking about the eggs, going so far as to pop open a carton of them. “Waiting until the last moment is always risky. What if they’d run out, or the store was closed?” He twists a few eggs in the carton and frowns when he sees that several of them are cracked. “Or what if all of the eggs were broken, like these. See?” He holds the carton with one hand, angling it towards Zhenya; with his free hand, he drops a piece of paper into the outer pocket of Zhenya’s suit jacket. “Such a waste.”

He shakes his head, closes the container, and sets it back. “Oh well. Good luck with your groceries,” he says then with a shrug, and then saunters off. Zhenya can barely process what just happened and it takes a few moments for him to close his fingers around the scrap of paper to make sure it’s still there, and then head to the check-out to pay.

Because he’s certain he’s still being watched -- if not by the man himself, then by his American colleagues -- Zhenya takes care to walk with slow and measured steps back home. The note is practically burning a hole in his pocket and he barely has his front door shut behind him before he’s pulling it out to examine it.

At first it looks like gibberish, a random collection of letters, but once Zhenya sits with it for a while, he realizes it’s a simple substitution cipher, one of the first ones he learned all those years ago when the KGB started training him. The note requests a meeting in a few days.

Zhenya grins. His work in America can finally begin.

 

*

 

It’s six in the morning and Zhenya finds himself sitting in a shitty, hole-in-the-wall diner off M Street. This is far earlier than Zhenya wants to be awake and it’s a struggle for him to get there on time, but that’s what the note from the man in the grocery store said, and Zhenya knows better than to not show up. He has a job to do here, after all, no matter how much he’d rather be asleep.

Zhenya arrives with ten minutes to spare, gets a cup of black coffee, and takes a seat in a booth that faces the door. Old habits die hard, and just because he thinks he’s safe here doesn’t mean that he’s going to start making risky choices.

At six o’clock exactly, the bell above the door jingles and the man from the store walks in. He’s just as breathtaking as Zhenya remembers, when they had their one-sided conversation over eggs, but this morning, he just looks exhausted. Based on his short, nearly curt conversation with the woman at the register, he’s not a morning person either. Zhenya files this information away, knowing it might be useful later. The man gets his coffee and makes a beeline for Zhenya’s table.

He hesitates before sitting down, holding his coffee mug tight in his hands, before he exhales and slides into the booth. “Keeping an eye on the door?” The man sits stiffly and looks over his shoulder a few times. Zhenya gets the impression that he’d like to be on this side of the booth, too, keeping his own watch out.

“Mmhmm.” Zhenya peers out at the man over the top of his cup of coffee. “Don’t worry, I tell you if Red Army storm gate.” In public, he speaks slowly and deliberately, trying to keep his accent to a minimum. This other man may already know who Zhenya is, but he doesn’t need anyone from this diner accosting him about being a dirty Red.

The other man cracks a smile at that, and Zhenya lets himself breathe. Maybe this will be okay.

“So. What can you get me? Financials, travel plans, names, anything useful?” the man asks abruptly, and Zhenya frowns. Maybe this won’t be okay, after all.

“Just like that?” Zhenya asks, brows raised. He sets his mug down and wraps his hands around it. “Don’t even know who you are, why you want meeting. Thought you supposed to charm people like me into helping you. At least offer things. All I know, you could be deep undercover from Moscow, try pin something on me. Not going to tell you things just because…” He's too tired to lie, so he finishes in Russian, voice pitched low so no one else can hear the switch. “ _Just because you’ve got a pretty face_.”

The man’s brows lift for a moment, then pull together in a deep crease. “I forgot how difficult you people are,” he mutters, then sets down his mug to reach inside his jacket. When it flaps aside, Zhenya sees the flash of a firearm holstered at the man’s side, and he knows he just saw that on purpose. The man slides a black leather wallet across the table to Zhenya, who glances around before flipping it open. It’s an FBI badge -- a real one, by his quick examination -- and Zhenya processes that he’s sitting in front of Sidney Crosby, Special Agent.

“Okay then,” he says, flipping the badge shut and sliding it back across the table. Sidney picks it up and drops it back into his pocket. “I’m still only half believe you. You think Moscow not make counterfeit?”

“You think your little friends from Moscow would set up a meeting in a diner a couple blocks up the street from FBI headquarters at six in the goddamn morning?” Sidney snaps. “You know as well as I do they’d have you out along the Potomac in the dead of night so they could put a bullet in your brain if they thought you were a liability. I just want my fucking eggs before I have to go into work. _Now_ , who are you and what can you get for me?”

He’s got an attitude. Zhenya likes him even more.

Zhenya sticks his hand out across the table, and Sidney grasps and shakes, still looking a bit annoyed. “Evgeni Malkin, Deputy Assistant to Ambassador Dobrynin. Please to meet, even if you not very charming.” He gives Sidney a little mocking smile, like he might not entirely believe Sidney’s telling the truth, but is going to humor him anyway. "I schedule meetings, read letters, have phone calls. Real exciting work, but I think you know this already.” He rolls his eyes. Neither the real Zhenya nor the fake pretending to be entertaining actual treason thinks that the job is interesting in the least. “Not sure what can give you, or _why_ should give you anything, Agent."

"Because I can keep you from having to go back to your shithole country," Sidney fires back.

Zhenya leans back in the booth and hums happily over his coffee. “What if I _like_ shithole country? You not very good at making friends, Agent. Thought guys supposed to be nice to me.”

Sidney scowls and reaches into his pocket, then flips a quarter on the table. “Here. Coffee’s on me. Now stop being so difficult.”

“You worst Special Agent I’m ever meet,” Zhenya says, but he pockets the quarter anyway. “Who your supervisor? I want talk with him, instead. Maybe he not so bossy.”

“I’m the _only_ Special Agent you’re going to meet,” Sidney says. “You already know--”

Zhenya cuts him off abruptly with a wave of his hand and a quick change of subject. “I tell my brother, he should come visit, but he more interested in New York. I tell him, ‘Denis, New York stupid, why not come instead to poor, lonely brother in capital?’”

Sidney looks confused, right up until the moment the waitress sidles up to their booth and slides a plate of food in front of him. “Sitting on the wrong side of the booth today, Sid. Living dangerous?” she asks with a smile.

“Even I make compromises sometimes, Alma.” Sidney grins up at her as he turns the plate around, toast on the left-hand side. “Thanks. May I have a refill on the coffee?”

Alma tops off Sidney’s mug, then does the same with Zhenya’s. “You must have the patience of a saint, putting up with this young man first thing in the morning.”

Zhenya shrugs. “I make mama proud,” he answers simply.

“Attaboy,” Alma says with a grin. She pats Zhenya’s shoulder, then steps back. “You boys just holler if you need anything else.”

“You know it,” Sidney says. He watches her as she goes off, then turns back to Zhenya once she’s far enough away. “As I was saying...”

“You always like this?” Zhenya gestures vaguely at Sidney, at his rearranged plate, at the way he’s using his fork to clear a wide, obvious space between his eggs and hash browns.

Sidney frowns. “We’re not here to talk about me.”

“You want something from me, I want something back.” Moscow would _not_ approve of this conversation. He is supposed to be gentle and meek and fearful of betraying his country. Zhenya is breaking all of the rules that Pavel laid out for him, but he can’t help it. He wants to _push_ Sidney as hard as he can, just to see what happens. Zhenya leans in and lowers his voice. “You ask much of me, Agent Crosby. You come in like tough guy, ask for secrets, don’t give anything in return. Maybe I’m not want money, or whatever else you think get me to talk. Maybe I’m just want know why eggs not touch potatoes.”

Sidney looks down at his plate, then back up at Zhenya. He purses his lips, pushes a hand through his hair, looks back at the plate. “That’s just the way it is,” he finally says. “There’s a way things need to be, and that’s just the way it is, not that it’s any of your business.” He cleans off his fork, then goes back to work rearranging the rest of his plate, pushing the ham off to the side, away from the eggs and hash browns. “My day has to start right, and this is part of it.”

There’s a curious flush that colors Sidney’s face, and Zhenya wants to keep pushing his buttons, again and again, to see what else he can make him do. The feeling unnerves him, because the last thing he should be focusing on is antagonizing someone who could probably make him disappear.

Zhenya nods, accepting Sidney’s explanation for what it is. It clearly cost Sidney something to admit as much as he does about his habits, as vague as the admission is, and Zhenya decides to reward him for it. “I’m go to work today, see if hear anything interesting, _da_?” Zhenya drains the last of his coffee, then sets the mug back on the table with a thump. “Same place and time, tomorrow?”

Sidney’s got his fork halfway to his mouth but he stops and sets it back down. “Fine,” he says. “I get that seat next time, though.” He gestures at the seat Zhenya’s occupying, the one with the clear sightlines to the door.

Zhenya shrugs. “Fine.” He stands back up, puts his jacket back on. “I trust you... I guess.” Flashing Sidney a broad grin, Zhenya ducks in, snatches a piece of toast from his plate, then claps him on the shoulder, fingers digging in ever so slightly. “ _Das vidanya_ , Agent Crosby.”

 

*

 

Pavel gets a very, very sanitized version of recent events.

“There was a man in the market,” Zhenya says, and he describes Sidney’s appearance so Pavel can put surveillance on him. He doesn’t mention Sidney’s eyes, or his perfect hair, or the way his suit fits him like a glove.

“We met the next morning, over breakfast,” Zhenya reports, and he gives directions to the diner, tells Pavel all that he can remember, except for the way he went head-to-head with Sidney, ignoring every lesson he was taught about dealing with an American agent who wants to recruit you.

“Tomorrow, we’ll meet again and I’ll give him the postcard,” Zhenya adds. If Pavel thinks he’s eager to meet with Sidney again, that’s fine, because he _is_ , just not entirely for the reasons that Pavel might be expecting.

Zhenya can already tell that he’s going to have to get even better at lying.

 

*

 

It’s ten to six, and Zhenya is back at the diner, cup of coffee in hand. He’s in the same booth as yesterday, but this time he sits in the opposite seat with his back to the door, just like he promised Sidney. It makes him feel a little itchy, not knowing what’s going on behind him, and he twitches every time the bell over the door jingles, but he keeps reminding himself that he _promised_.

At six, the bell jingles again and from behind him, Zhenya can hear Sidney talking with Alma at the counter. He can’t help it, he smiles to himself over his coffee as he hears Sidney mumble out his order.

Sidney’s shoes click on the tile floor as he makes his way across the diner. “I see you can follow directions,” he says as he slides into his usual seat and drops his newspaper onto the table.

“I’m know how to play nice.” Zhenya’s smile is huge and brilliant. Sidney frowns; he doesn’t say another word until he’s finished with his coffee.

“So. What have you--”

Zhenya cuts him off with a click of his tongue. “No, no,” he says. “One morning I’m with you, I already see. No serious talk until have another coffee.” He catches Alma’s eye and waves his hand to call her over.

“That was fast,” she says as she tips more coffee into both of their mugs.

“You should leave pot here,” Zhenya says, watching the way Sidney stares at the coffee. “This one, he no good without.”

“You’re telling me, honey.” Alma smiles at Zhenya. “He’s been coming here, what, three years now, Sid?” Sidney give the most curt of nods over his coffee cup. “Three years, never once has he said anything other than his order to me when he walks in. Wanna know a secret?”

Sidney cocks an eyebrow. “Alma, come on now.”

She flaps a hand at him and leans up against the table to face Zhenya. “Hush you, I’m making friends.”

“See? We make friends.” Zhenya turns to Sidney and grins, then faces Alma again and props his chin on his hands. “Tell _everything_.”

Alma leans in and speaks in a stage whisper, still loud enough for Sidney to hear. “Jimmy back in the kitchen, he keeps telling me, ‘Alma, you don’t even need to take that boy’s order. Why don’t you just have him sit right down, save yourselves both some grief?’”

“Yeah, why don’t you, Alma?” Sidney chimes in, but there’s no edge to his voice. Zhenya catches a quick, soft smile flickering across Sidney’s face before he drops his attention back to his newspaper.

“Because I’m waiting for the day when that one surprises me by saying something other than ‘eggs, scrambled; hash browns; ham; toast, no butter; coffee, black’.” She rattles off the list in a passable imitation of Sidney, who lets out a quiet chuckle at the impression. “He’s going to say ‘hello, Alma,’ or ‘not too busy this morning?’ and I am going to be so surprised that I might just fall over. All the years I’ve worked here, and that would be my proudest moment.”

“Make him talk, that all?” Zhenya raises his eyebrows in disbelief.

“Well, that, and…” Alma looks back at Sidney and gestures at him.

“Routine,” he says. “Like the eggs and the hash browns.” Sidney mimes separating food in front of him, and Zhenya nods.

“You mean to Alma because _routine_?”

Sidney frowns. “It’s not like that.”

“Is so,” Zhenya says. Alma chuckles and steps back, looking at the both of them with a fond expression. “What mama say, she know you rude?”

“My mother would say that she’s seen a lot worse,” Sidney says. “She would also say that it’s none of your business.”

“Maybe,” Zhenya hedges. “But probably she just mad you so rude.”

“You keep him right in line, hon.” Alma tips the last of the coffee in her pot into Sidney’s near-empty mug. “Behave yourself. Your food’ll be right up, Sid.” She raps her knuckles against the tabletop as she turns to go, heading back to the kitchen.

With Alma gone, Sidney’s entire demeanor changes. His posture straightens and his expression goes curiously blank. Zhenya’s already thinking of it as Sidney’s business face, so he’s not surprised whenever Sidney speaks again. “What do you--”

“Worst,” Zhenya says to cut him off. “We just talk, tell how rude you are. No manners, none! Not even say please?”

Sidney sighs heavily. “Would you _please_ just show me whatever it is you’ve got?”

Zhenya smiles and shakes his head. “You _try_. Is enough, today.” He reaches into the pocket of his overcoat and pulls out the postcard that Pavel gave him. “Find this on desk yesterday, maybe something here you like?”

Sidney plucks it from Zhenya’s hand and looks at it. Understanding dawns quickly on his face and he tucks it away in his pocket. “And no one’s going to miss this?”

“Mail go missing lots.” Zhenya shrugs. “Someone ask me, I say I’m never see card. Easy.”

“Huh.” Sidney looks at Zhenya with a long, unblinking stare, and Zhenya has to force himself not to look away. “You’ve never done this before,” Sidney says finally. “It’s never that simple.”

Zhenya shakes his head. “I take care. Do your job, Agent, is no problem.”

Sidney purses his lips. “I certainly hope so.” He doesn’t sound convinced, but Zhenya doesn’t care, and he’s not going to push. Sidney’s free to think that this is going to be a disaster; Zhenya can’t wait until he’s pleasantly surprised when everything goes smoothly.

“Stop,” Zhenya says. “You see, is fine. Maybe great, maybe you get something you want.”

“We’ll see.” Sidney pats his pocket where the postcard is tucked away. “Anything else for me today?”

Zhenya knows what Sidney is actually asking him, but he ignores it. “You think you be FBI, when little? All this secrets?”

“Are you asking what I wanted to be when I grew up?” Sidney sounds incredulous, but even he can’t help the smile that tugs at one side of his mouth.

“Yes,” Zhenya says excitedly.

“A fireman.” Sidney’s answer is immediate. Zhenya grins.

“You put out fires, save cat in tree?” He shakes his head. “I’m never guess, not you.”

“I like helping people,” Sidney says candidly. “And I think I would have been good at it.” Sidney looks away, down at the table, then clears his throat. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I know. Nothing else today,” Zhenya says.

“That’s fine. Meet back here next week, then, we’ll discuss. Maybe you’ll have something new for me.” Zhenya can tell that this isn’t a suggestion.

“ _Da, kapitan,_ ” he says with a smirk, even though he knows he shouldn’t. At least he manages to keep himself from offering a mock salute. He downs the rest of his coffee, then stands to go. “Next week, Agent.”

 

*

 

Zhenya quickly falls into a routine with Sidney. Every Tuesday, they meet at the diner. Sidney orders the same meal and asks with the same familiar impatience for whatever Zhenya’s managed to smuggle out from work.

And, every week, Zhenya finds himself extracting information back out of Sidney. It’s not the kind of information that Pavel wants, though.

Pavel wants American secrets. Zhenya collects Sidney’s secrets, one innocent question at a time.

“You have family?” Zhenya asks after passing along a code cipher that’s due to be retired in a few days.

Sidney looks startled, but he schools his features back into his typical composure as he folds his hands over his closed newspaper. “My parents and a sister. Why?”

Zhenya shakes his head. “No, not _that_ family. Other family, _your_ family. Wife, little babies.”

“Oh.” Sidney drops his head to stare down at his plate. “No, nothing like that. It’s just me here.”

“Shame,” Zhenya says, but whenever Sidney jerks his head back up to stare, Zhenya decides to change the subject before he says anything stupid.

 

*

 

Zhenya slides a canister of undeveloped film across the table. “Photos of your people, maybe not know they being watched,” he says. Pavel has already ended surveillance on everyone in the photographs, but the Americans will still waste time and money trying to find out who’s monitoring their people.

Sidney snatches the canister up and slips it into his pocket. Zhenya’s trying to think of a good question to ask Sidney this week, when Sidney interrupts his line of thought.

“Do you like it here?” he asks slowly. There’s something awkward in the way he asks, a note of uncertainty in his voice, like he’s doing something he shouldn’t be.

“Diner nice,” Zhenya responds. “Quiet, no one bother us. Alma good to us. You see extra toast today?” He gestures at the plate of toast in the center of the table, with four cut up slices instead of two.

“She feels bad for me because you keep taking all of it.” Sidney pushes the toast closer to Zhenya. “And that’s not what I mean. I didn’t mean the diner, I meant _here_. D.C., America. Do you like it?" 

Zhenya looks down at his coffee mug and wonders how honest he should be, how much he can say without giving away too much of his heart. “Is not bad,” he says slowly. “Miss mama, papa, Denis, but America not so bad. People okay, I’m have good job, store always have what I need, even if eggs broken some days.” He glances up at Sidney, a shy smile breaking free when he meets Sidney’s gaze.

Sidney looks away and clears his throat. “Hopefully not too often,” he says softly. “I’d hate for you to have to find a new store.”

He feels like Sidney’s maybe trying to tell him something, but he knows his English isn’t good enough, and he’s afraid to ask. “Is close to my place, why I’m look for new one?”

Sidney shakes his head and smiles sadly. “No reason,” he says. “Did you already take the front page of the paper?”

The moment’s gone as quickly as it settled in around them. “Oh, here,” Zhenya hands the newspaper back over to Sidney and tries very hard not to let their hands touch.

 

*

 

As soon as Sidney sits down in the booth, Zhenya tears off a corner of Sidney’s newspaper and then holds out his hand. “Give me pen, quick, before I’m forget.”

Sidney looks perplexed but fishes a pen out of the pocket of his coat and hands it over. Zhenya scrawls out a series of numbers, followed by the name of a local bank. “Is bank account. Money for new arrivals go through here.”

The bank account is technically active but it’s under an alias and no one’s ever used it, so the Americans can monitor it for activity all they like without actually gaining anything. Zhenya folds the scrap of paper up and reaches across the table to hand it to Sidney, who catches Zhenya’s fingers with his before he can pull away.

“What’s today’s question?” he asks. Zhenya doesn’t expect that, and it’s his turn to feel caught off-balance.

“I’m not think of yet,” Zhenya says.

“Bullshit,” Sidney says, still holding on to Zhenya’s hand.

He did have a question in mind already, something innocuous about cats versus dogs, but the hard look in Sidney’s eyes makes him change his mind.

“Are you happy here?” he asks. “Job, life, everything. _You_ happy?”

Whatever Sidney had thought Zhenya was going to ask, that clearly wasn’t it, and his grip around Zhenya’s hand falters just enough for Zhenya to withdraw.

Sidney’s slow to pull his arm back in, and when he does, he rubs at his fingers, like holding on to Zhenya’s hand _hurt_ him. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just do,” he says.

For a long time, Sidney doesn’t respond. He focuses on his breakfast and Zhenya watches the precise way that he eats his meal for a while. He’s nearly ready to call it quits and head off to his own job when Sidney abruptly puts down his fork and knife.

“Sometimes,” Sidney says.

“What?”

Sidney frowns and balls his hands into tight fists on the table top. “You asked if I was happy. Sometimes. Sometimes I am, and sometimes, I think it’s all a fucking waste of time.”

Zhenya’s never seen Sidney like this. He knows that he needs to tread carefully, so he says nothing, just nods slowly.

“Everyone wants _more_ , everyone wants blood. I did my tour, I’ve had enough of that. This isn’t a _war_ , but if we keep poking the hornet’s nest, we’re going to get more war than we can handle.” He’s _angry_ , and Zhenya’s curious to see the way that Sidney lets it leak out, one clipped word at a time. He’s always so composed that this tiny fracture in the facade is fascinating, even if Zhenya only understands about half of what Sidney’s trying to tell him. “I’m happy _here_ , I like _this_ , but…” Sidney cuts himself off abruptly and presses his lips into a flat line. “It’s just very hard, harder than I ever thought it would be.”

Zhenya doesn’t know what to say. He thinks over his options, then reaches across the table to cover one of Sidney’s hands with his own. “Nothing about this easy,” he says softly. He squeezes Sidney’s hand and hopes that Sidney understands just how much he means it. “Nothing easy, but you do good, Sidney. Don’t forget, okay?”

Sidney meets Zhenya’s eyes, then nods, very slowly. “Okay.”

 

*

 

Zhenya’s long known that his heart’s never been too inclined to listen to reason, particularly when it comes to the types of people he winds up feeling more than friendly towards. He’s always spent so much time trying to hide those feelings away -- it’s never been safe to give in -- but even Zhenya can recognize a losing battle when he’s in the middle of it.

He knows with each week that passes that he’s falling hard for Sidney. It’s a terrible idea on all fronts, because Sidney should be the epitome of _off limits_ , but Zhenya’s in too deep now. He’s in over his head and even though he knows full well that he should be trying to pull back from Sidney, he can’t make himself do it. Instead, he keeps on breaking all the rules and he doesn’t even feel bad about it.

They never talk about Sidney’s outburst, but Zhenya does notice that Sidney’s been asking him more questions lately, and they’re not ones that have anything to do with their jobs.

“What did you do back in Moscow?” Sidney asks. “Before you came over here.”

Zhenya rustles with the newspaper on the table, flipping it open, then shut again. He knows this answer; it’s part truth and part lie, drilled into his head back in Moscow, a cover story that was easily verifiable if the Americans decided to test it.

But that doesn’t make lying to Sidney any easier. Zhenya knows that this isn’t supposed to be a real friendship, it’s a means to an end. They’re not even supposed to have conversations like this, but Zhenya can’t stop himself from accepting every invitation from Sidney, even if he doesn’t have anything new that he’s authorized to share.

So he goes with the lie, even though it chips away at his heart a little more.

“Spend time in Navy, few years, then I’m very lucky, study at Moscow State,” he says, and he has to force himself to look at Sidney as he speaks. Looking away makes him look guilty, like he’s hiding something, and he isn’t. He believes the lie, because Moscow told him to believe the lie, and he may not be the best operative but he knows he has a job to do. “I study engineering, but, of course, very bad student.” Zhenya smiles, a bit bashful: that bit is true, since his grades had always been abysmal at best. “Get office job, is terrible, no one let me build _anything_. So when job here come, I’m take.”

Sidney, somehow, actually appears interested in what he has to say. “Do you ever wish you were, you know, building things? You’ve got to get bored, writing memos and copying letters and transferring phone calls.”

Zhenya chuckles. “Yes, but…” He shrugs slowly. “Is stupid, say no to good job. See America, serve my country, make family proud.” He sounds sad when he says it, because he should be sad, if he were someone so disillusioned with his country that he would so easily give up its secrets. Zhenya spreads his hands out in front of him, palms up. “Nothing here what I expected. Wouldn’t change, though.”

And even if the story is a lie -- the truth of it is that he was recruited by the KGB instead of floundering in the Navy, he never spent a day at Moscow State, and he sure as hell wasn’t an engineer -- the sentiment is true. He wouldn’t change a second of it, because otherwise he might be sitting somewhere else, not having his morning coffee with Sidney. So he’ll take it, he’ll deal with it, and he’ll continue lying to keep everything else safe.

“What about you?” Zhenya asks then, wanting to get the spotlight off of himself. “You not always wear fancy suits and steal secrets, _da_?”

Sidney’s lips tug down into a flicker of a frown, and he opens his mouth, like he’s ready to rebut with a familiar argument, but he changes his approach. “My family split our time between here and Canada when I was a kid. We had a place up in Nova Scotia.” Sidney looks at him like he expects Zhenya to know what he’s talking about, but Zhenya stares back blankly. His training didn’t extend to teaching him anything about Canadian geography. Zhenya shrugs helplessly, and Sidney frowns. “Up and to the right of Maine.”

“Okay,” Zhenya says, still kind of confused. He’s not entirely sure that he knows where Maine is.

“Do I need to get the atlas from my car?” Sidney’s smiling at him, eyes crinkling at the corners, and Zhenya has to look away.

“Is not important,” Zhenya says, staring down at his cup of coffee. “I’m look up later, if I need know.” He waves his hand in the air. “Keep going, keep going.”

Sidney looks skeptical, but he continues anyway. “We’d spend school breaks up there, Christmas and summers and everything. We had a little cottage, set back up in the woods in Cole Harbour. It was nice, just being up there, being a family. My parents, my sister, and me, no distractions, just us. Come winter, the pond would ice over, and we’d all go out and skate around. I’d play hockey with the boys from the neighborhood until my dad had to come out and drag me back in.”

While Sidney talks, Zhenya starts helping himself to the food left on Sidney’s plate. “You play?” Zhenya asks around a mouthful of stolen hash browns.

“I did. Not much, but, it was Canada, you know? It was practically law.” Sidney pushes the plate into the center of the table, towards Zhenya, who nods and takes another forkful.

“You any good?” Sidney shrugs and looks down at the table, a move which Zhenya’s learned to recognize as Sidney being bashful. “You _were_ , you were good, _da_?” Zhenya studies Sidney while he’s looking away, then leans across the table. “Hockey, that what this from?” He sticks out his hand and, before Sidney can stop him, runs his index finger down a thin scar on the underside of Sidney’s chin.

It’s like time stops as soon as Zhenya makes contact. Zhenya sees Sidney’s eyes go wide, watches him suck in a breath and hold it, and Zhenya lets his touch linger for longer than necessary before he pulls away and drops back into his seat.

Sidney exhales. “Stick to the face,” he says finally. He lifts one hand away from the mug and presses his fingers against the scar. “I was, I don’t know... eleven or twelve? I think I made one of the other boys mad. I probably deserved it.”

Zhenya leans back and grins. “Agent Crosby, full of secrets! Secret Canadian, secret hockey player, secret tough guy. What else?” Zhenya shouldn’t joke around about secrets and he knows it, but when it comes to Sidney, he’s starting to think he wouldn’t mind having a few less secrets weighing on him.

Sidney’s brows crease, and he’s very intent on studying his cup of coffee. “Oh, I don’t know,” he says quietly. “Nothing interesting, I’m sure.”

“You interesting, don’t lie,” Zhenya says. Sidney doesn’t respond any further than a slight shrug of his shoulders. “Tell me more about Canada.”

“You should really see it for yourself,” Sidney says. “I can’t do it justice.”

“Maybe I go someday, when this all over. Disappear into woods, like big bear.” The idea holds a certain amount of appeal for Zhenya, even though he knows that he gave up all control over his life the moment he accepted the General’s invitation to join the KGB. “Maybe I see you there someday, we play hockey on pond. I best, so we know I’m win.”

Sidney leans back in his chair, looking as relaxed as Zhenya’s ever seen him. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” he says. Zhenya smiles and lets himself imagine, even for the briefest of moments, a universe in which he and Sidney could live happy, quiet lives in Canada, with no secrets or lies to tear them apart.

 

*

 

It’s nearly time for Zhenya to go. They’ve completed the traditional exchange of Soviet intel (a list of senators whose offices used to be bugged) for _Sidney_ intel (the boy who high-sticked Sidney did it because Sidney scored on the other team _six times_ ), and Sidney’s focused on his newspaper and neatly arranged scrambled eggs. Zhenya doesn’t have much to wait around for, but he finds himself lingering anyway. Sidney doesn’t say anything about it, so Zhenya supposes it’s safe to stay.

He’s just about ready to steal another forkful of hash browns while Sidney’s flipping through his newspaper, when Sidney speaks up. “Next week,” he says. Zhenya stops, arm outstretched, and looks at him.

“What about?” he asks.

Sidney reaches out and swats Zhenya’s fork away with his own. “I can’t meet in the morning next week, I have to head out to Maryland first thing.”

Zhenya frowns. He shouldn’t let his disappointment show, but he can’t help it. “Oh. Well. Is okay, you have important job to do. Meet week after, then?”

“No, no, I can meet you in the evening instead, if you’re free. I’ll be back by then.”

“You sure?” Zhenya knows that Sidney’s fixated on his routine, and their routine has never included anything other than mornings at the diner. “Is no problem we wait. I know you, not like change.”

“This is _different_ , this is…” Sidney trails off and makes a frustrated noise. “I want to, alright? Everything else about next week is already going to be terrible. We can’t meet here, so it won’t be _exactly_ the same, but…” He looks down and pushes his eggs around with his fork.  
“We’re doing good work here and I don’t want to lose momentum. I don’t want to change too much else up.”

Sidney’s request isn’t unreasonable, and even if Zhenya _wanted_ to say no, he can’t think of a good reason to refuse. After all, it’s not like spending more time with Sidney is going to be a hardship. “Okay, Sidney,” Zhenya says finally. “Next week is fine, I’m change my day, all for you.”

Sidney smiles and looks relieved. Zhenya wonders what else he has to do to make sure that Sidney always looks at him like that. “Meet here at seven, then. I’ll come pick you up.”

It will be an adventure, Zhenya thinks, and he really enjoys adventures.

 

*

 

Zhenya can’t explain why he feels so nervous, waiting outside the closed diner for Sidney to pull up. He doesn’t think its a set-up; Sidney, he’s learned, is good at being diplomatic but terrible at outright lying. So there must be something else that’s driving Zhenya’s nerves.

He thinks that maybe Sidney’s reliance on routine is rubbing off on him, because his whole day has felt empty without his weekly chat with Sidney at the diner, and he doesn’t exactly know how to feel about that.

An older model car flashes its headlights, distracting Zhenya from his thoughts, and he stares at it as it slows to a stop. Of course it’s Sidney’s car; Zhenya doesn’t know what he expected Sidney to drive.

Inside, Zhenya sees Sidney throw the car into park, then lean over and open the passenger door from the inside. “Get in,” he says, patting the empty seat.

“You sure this good idea?” Zhenya asks. “Anyone can see, watch us drive off.”

“Come on, get in,” Sidney says. Zhenya casts a dubious glance down the street and hesitates, hand hovering just over the door. “You’re fine, there’s no surveillance on you, just get in.”

“Not Americans I’m worry about,” Zhenya says. He glances over his shoulder one last time before getting in the car. He knows he’s going to have to tell Pavel about this next time they meet, so he’s not sure why he feels so uneasy, but he does. Zhenya’s still not sure where Sidney’s taking him, but he wants to keep their deviation to the routine a secret. He doesn’t see why Pavel should get _everything._ He doesn’t see why he can’t keep something to himself.

“No surveillance,” Sidney repeats as Zhenya slams the door shut and settles into the seat. “Not mine, or yours. No one’s following me. Trust me.”

“Okay.” Zhenya shifts uncomfortably in the seat and watches as they drive through D.C. Sidney doesn’t try talking to him, but Zhenya catches the concerned glances Sidney keeps throwing his way. He doesn’t know what to say, though, so he doesn’t say anything. It’s Sidney’s routine being thrown off, not Zhenya’s, and Sidney seems mostly fine with it.

The longer they drive, the more the concrete buildings of D.C. give way to smaller, squatter buildings. Brownstones and bungalows rapidly replace the boxy government offices. Zhenya’s curiosity eventually gets the best of him. “Where you drive us?”

Sidney taps his fingers against the steering wheel. “Took you long enough to ask.”

“Well, you want leave me dead in forest, nothing I can do now.” Zhenya had thought about the possibility that Sidney’s change in routine wasn’t as innocuous as he made it sound, but he dismissed it as quickly as the notion had arrived. “Figure, is better, go, see what happen.” He turns towards Sidney and flashes him the start of a sly grin. “Besides, I’m bigger, maybe faster. You smart, maybe not try anything stupid.”

“I don’t know about that,” Sidney says. The look on his face is unreadable, and Zhenya wants nothing more to lean across the seats and map his features with his fingertips in hopes that he would suddenly understand what Sidney’s getting at.

Sidney clears his throat and Zhenya realizes he’s been staring. “You not answer question.”

“My house,” he says. “It’s safe, I promise. We sweep for bugs all the time.”

“Okay.” Zhenya’s skeptical, but there aren’t many ways that he can tell Sidney that without sounding suspicious.

Zhenya does _not_ want to go to Sidney’s house. He does not want to see where Sidney lives. It’s bad enough that he already wants to run his tongue up the curve of Sidney’s neck, right where his skin flushes whenever he’s said something unexpected. He doesn’t need to know where Sidney eats, where he reads, drinks, showers, sleeps, but it looks like he’s going to find out.

 

*

 

“So, there are a few rules, before we go in.” Sidney’s got his hand on the doorknob, but they’re still standing out on the front stoop.

“This like eggs and potato thing?”

Sidney sighs, but his smile is fond and his eyes crinkle at the corners with it. “Yes, exactly like the eggs and potatoes.”

He explains all the rules to Zhenya -- where shoes have to go, what not to touch, where to stand as Sidney locks the door behind them -- and all Zhenya can think is that it sounds _exhausting_. He doesn’t know how to say it in English, so he mutters under his breath in Russian about it.

“What’s that?” Sidney asks.

Zhenya shakes his head and gestures at the door. “Nothing. I’m hear rules, be good, just go.”

Zhenya stands on the correct mat as Sidney methodically locks and unlocks the door: eight times for the main lock, four for the deadbolt, three for the chain. _Exhausting_ , Zhenya thinks again as he toes out of his shoes and leaves them in the right space.

“That everything?” Zhenya asks. He peels out of his coat and scarf and hangs it on the coat rack, all while still standing on what he hopes is he correct mat.

Sidney presses his fingertips to the top corner of the doorframe, then turns around. “That’s all.” He gestures at the living room, which Zhenya takes as his cue to step off of the mat. Sidney watches him as he goes, mouth opening a few times to speak, but nothing comes out.

“What?” Zhenya makes himself comfortable on the couch. None of Sidney’s rules had anything to do with the couch, so he figured it was safe to sprawl out.

“Most people get angry, or at least they ask more questions,” Sidney says eventually. “About the locks and the shoes and everything. You didn’t.”

“You not need explain, not for me.” Zhenya shrugs. “Not matter. You say is like eggs and potato, I’m believe it. It make better if I’m put shoes on mat, so okay.”

Sidney folds his arms over his chest and rubs absently at his upper arms. “Thanks. It means a lot that you’re just … that it doesn’t matter to you.”

“Why would it?” Zhenya pats the spot on the sofa next to him, and Sidney wanders over to sit down. “People get angry, they not good friends.”

“I guess.” Sidney settles slowly onto the couch, close to Zhenya but still a good, proper distance away. “I don’t have people over that often, anyway. It’s usually too much.”

“But this okay?” Zhenya gestures at himself, taking up far too much room on the sofa. “If too much trouble, you say, I’m go.”

“No, no.” Sidney looks at him and Zhenya swears his eyes travel the length of his body before only barely meeting his eyes. “This is good. This is… you, here, it’s fine, it’s nice.”

Zhenya smiles, and Sidney offers one of his own in return, small and shy. “You know I’m not have anything new for you.”

“That’s fine.” Sidney shrugs. “Not everything needs to be work. Can you hand me the paper?"

Zhenya’s not sure why Sidney wants to waste his own time if there isn’t any business to attend to, but he’s not going to pass up the opportunity to be with Sidney, even if they don’t discuss anything of consequence. “Here,” he says, swiping the folded-up newspaper from the table and handing it to Sidney. “You tell me what happen in world?”

Sidney opens to the sports section first, just like he always does. “Looks like the Maple Leafs are going to win it all again.”

“Yeah?” Zhenya leans over to look at the newspaper. His shoulder presses up against Sidney’s as he squints down at the paper, the English words swimming in his vision. “You want win?”

Sidney shifts closer to Zhenya so they can both see the paper. “I was rooting for Montreal, but no luck there.”

Zhenya hesitates for a moment before settling his left arm behind Sidney’s back, not quite encircling his waist, but close. “Maybe next year, your team win.”

“Maybe.” Sidney shrugs and taps his fingers against the folded paper. Zhenya thinks he must be imagining it, but he swears that Sidney leans back against him as they read together. “Think you’ll be here to see it?”

“Hope so.” Zhenya rests his chin on Sidney’s shoulder as he looks at the paper. He has a thousand excuses for it -- he’s tired, it’s late, he can’t see the paper that well -- but Sidney doesn’t move to push him away, so he lets himself relax. “Moscow not say how long they want me here. Could be six months, could be six years.”

Sidney nudges Zhenya with his elbow. “Hope it’s the latter, eh?”

Zhenya nudges back with his shoulder. “You only want longer so I’m keep give you secrets,” he teases.

Sidney does lean back then, his weight solid and heavy against Zhenya’s chest. “Even if you stopped, if it wasn’t safe anymore, I’d hope…” He sighs and goes silent until Zhenya pokes at his hip. “I’d hope we could still find a way to have times like this.”

“Oh.” Zhenya takes a chance and curves his hand around Sidney’s hip. “Of course,” he says. “This better than work, any day.”

“Yeah?” Sidney twists to look at Zhenya, a hopeful smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

Zhenya pulls Sidney close and beams at him. “Oh, yeah, yeah, lots better! Couch more comfortable, I take off shoes, make like home, not like diner. We do this more, add to your routine, yeah? Keep us both happy then.”

“Great.” Sidney looks relieved, relaxed, perfect. “I’ll have to think about... there’s probably a day that feels more right, I’ll have to think about it first, but definitely we should.” His fingers brush against Zhenya’s on his hip, lingering a beat too long to be accidental. “We should do this more.”

Zhenya’s halfway to gathering the courage to ask Sidney what exactly he means by _this_ , what exactly _this_ is in the first place, when Sidney’s phone rings. For the first time since they came in the door, Sidney pulls away and sits up straight. His expression closes off and he looks like Special Agent Sidney Crosby again.

“I should take that,” he says as he pushes himself up off of the couch.

“Should I go?” Zhenya gestures at the door.

Sidney edges back towards the hallway. “No, no, stay, it won’t be long. Get yourself a drink, I’ll sort out whatever mess this is.”

 

*

 

Zhenya doesn’t mean to snoop, but he can’t help it. Sidney’s still on the phone and from the sharp words Zhenya keeps overhearing, he’s probably going to be there for a while. He goes to pour himself another glass of bourbon when he sees a well-worn datebook tucked behind several liquor bottles.

He doesn’t mean to knock it loose when he pulls down the bourbon. And he definitely doesn’t mean to flip it open to the latest entry.

But he _does_ , and suddenly he’s reading about Sidney’s day yesterday. His writing devolves into shorthand at times, but Zhenya can decipher enough to know that Sidney put in ten hours at the office before going to meet a contact in Arlington.

Zhenya definitely doesn’t flip through the datebook looking for any mention of himself, but it’s tempting.

Tucked away in the back of the house, Sidney raises his voice on the phone. “Well, you fucking better tell them to get out there. Stop second guessing yourself with this shit, Bennett. You’re not a rookie anymore.” Zhenya startles and shoves the datebook back onto the shelf, then refils his glass as he hears Sidney end his conversation. “Come to see me in the office in the morning, kid. We’ll straighten it out.”

Zhenya hears the phone clatter as Sidney drops it back into the receiver. He’s tipping another two fingers of bourbon into his glass as Sidney emerges. “Sounds like tough call. You want?” he asks, lifting the bottle up.

Sidney scrubs his hands against his face, then slides them up to tangle in his hair. “ _Yes_ ,” he says emphatically.

Zhenya pulls down another glass and pours a splash of bourbon in it for Sidney before handing it over. “ _Za vas_ , Sidney,” he murmurs as he clinks their glasses together.

“Cheers.” Sidney watches Zhenya for a long moment before they both drink.

It might be easier this way, Zhenya thinks, if he just keeps drinking. Then he doesn’t have to think about Sidney. So close but so far, and so terribly off-limits.

 

*

 

He desperately wants to ignore the way that Sidney makes him feel, but he’s so much closer, so unguarded here in his own home, and he spends all of his time in Zhenya’s space, despite Zhenya’s best efforts.

“Here, let me, you don’t have to do that.” Sidney pushes at Zhenya’s arm, trying to move him away from the sink.

“This not like eggs and potato,” Zhenya says as he elbows Sidney back. “This just you being stubborn.”

“You’re my guest,” Sidney says. He glares at Zhenya before ducking underneath his arm. It’s an effective move in that it gets Sidney in front of the sink, but he’s also boxed in by Zhenya’s arms. They’re standing very close, crowded together up against the counter.

Zhenya swallows heavily, but he doesn’t back away. “You want wash dishes that bad?”

Sidney looks up to meet Zhenya’s eyes. “I don’t want you to feel like -- you don’t need to -- you’re my _guest_.”

“Mama teach me, be good guest, don’t leave mess.” Zhenya’s fingers tighten around the counter. He has a thousand reasons to step away, and number one is the way that he wants to lean into the heat of Sidney’s body, press him up against the counter, and show him just how good of a guest he can be.

Sidney’s tongue darts out to wet his lips. “You’re my _friend_ ,” he says. The rough rasp in his voice makes Zhenya shiver.

“I’m be good friend, then.” Zhenya can’t shake the feeling that they’re talking about something _else_ , not just the fact that he wants to wash out his own glass, but he can’t bring himself to do anything other than talk around it. “Let me.” Zhenya bites down hard on his lower lip as he feels himself sway forward into Sidney’s space.

“It’s alright,” Sidney says. He raises one arm from his side and ever so slowly reaches up to brush his fingertips against Zhenya’s tie. “We’re not working right now, this isn’t _business_ , I don’t expect you to take care of things here.” As Sidney talks, his fingers curl around the tie and his knuckles brush against Zhenya’s chest.

Zhenya meets Sidney’s eyes for a moment before he has to look away. He fixes his gaze on the cabinets above the sink instead and tries desperately to not look at Sidney’s face. “Is just dirty glass. I’m clean, no problem. I _know_ , okay? I’m know you not expect. I do because I’m good guy.”

“I’m just saying.” Sidney releases Zhenya’s tie and presses his fingertips lightly to Zhenya’s chest. “I don’t want you to feel obligated, that’s all.”

“Sidney.” Zhenya looks at Sidney’s hand on his chest, then flicks his gaze back to Sidney’s face. That was a mistake, though, because Sidney’s worrying his lower lip between his teeth, eyes wide and dark as he stares up at Zhenya. Zhenya _wants_ , and he knows he shouldn’t. “Nothing about you is…” He pauses, trying to wrap his mouth around the word _obligation_ , starts it a few times before giving up. “Is not like that, never. I’m not feel like that, ever, with you. Promise.”

“You’ve never done this before. When this is all over, I don’t want anyone to be able to look back and say you were _used_ , that I did anything…” Sidney’s voice trails off just as slowly as his fingers skate lightly up Zhenya’s chest. By the time he’s done talking, his fingers hover over the edge of Zhenya’s collar, brushing lightly against his neck. Zhenya bites back on a gasp at the touch and forces himself to stay still instead of pressing himself up against Sidney.

“I’m _know_ what I do,” Zhenya whispers as he reaches up and covers Sidney’s hand with his own. He doesn’t make Sidney move away, though, and their joined hands hover just above Zhenya’s collar. “Do you?”

“No,” Sidney admits. “Not anymore.” Sidney pulls their hands higher, so he can press his fingertips against the curve of Zhenya’s jaw. “I haven’t, not since…”

Sidney never gets to finish his sentence, because the phone rings. Zhenya nearly jumps and instantly drops Sidney’s hand before taking a large step back.

“Fucking Christ, Bennett,” Sidney snaps when the phone keeps ringing. “I have to get that,” he says apologetically as he slides out from against the counter. “It’s going to be work.”

“Is fine,” Zhenya says. He keeps one hand pressed to the side of his neck, right where Sidney’s fingers had landed. “Call important, you go.” With his free hand, he gestures at the back of the house, where Sidney prefers to take his calls.

He nods and steps away, but pauses on the threshold of the kitchen. “I’m sorry,” he says, then turns and leaves before Zhenya can even ask him what he’s actually apologizing for.

From his spot in the kitchen, Zhenya can still hear Sidney answer the phone in his bedroom. “This is Crosby,” he says. In the ensuing silence while Sidney listens to his caller, Zhenya wraps his hands around the counter’s edge and leans forward, head bowed. The slow, even breaths he takes aren’t enough to calm him down; they’re not enough to make him forget how close he just came to doing something very stupid with Sidney. He curses under his breath, a long, low stream in Russian, as he listens to Sidney try to reassure Bennett from the other room.

“Listen, start at the beginning, Bennett,” he hears Sidney say. “Tell me what happened, and then I’ll help you fix it.” Zhenya exhales, then reaches for the faucet to start running the water in the sink. The sound blocks out the gentle hum of Sidney’s voice as he talks, and the simple, repetitive action of cleaning helps distance him from remembering the feel of Sidney’s fingers against his skin.

Zhenya only means to wash their glasses, but the act of cleaning soothes him, and before he knows it, he’s washed the rest of the dishes that were in the sink. He’s drying off his hands whenever he hears Sidney clear his throat.

He’s standing a safe distance away, but there’s something sharp in his gaze that puts Zhenya on edge. “I have to go,” he says. “One of my agents...”

Zhenya folds the dish towel and hangs it back over the oven handle. “Don’t tell,” Zhenya says, offering Sidney a small smile. “I’m still other side, _da_? Don’t tell about agent.”

Sidney moves to step forward but can’t seem to make it into the kitchen. “You’re not a bad guy. You know that, right? You’re _not_.”

“But I _am_. I should go,” Zhenya says. Sidney’s blocking the exit, though, and stands his ground whenever Zhenya approaches. “Sidney. Move.”

Sidney stops him by planting one hand firmly against the center of his chest. “We’ll … everything with us is fine, right?” There’s a desperate edge to his voice, and it breaks Zhenya’s heart. Sidney, he can only assume, realized what it looked like earlier, the two of them pressed up against the kitchen sink, and wants nothing more to do with it.

“Everything fine, Agent Crosby,” Zhenya says. He claps Sidney on the shoulder once, then brushes past him. “Now come, before I’m break any rules for leaving.”

 

*

 

Zhenya gets called into Pavel’s office almost immediately when he arrives to work the next day. He’s barely brushed the snow from his hair when Masha tells him that Pavel needs to see him now, so he sits in Pavel’s office, hair damp and curling in the dry heat.

“Did you have an eventful evening, Evgeni?” Pavel asks. His hands are clasped overtop of a red folder. Zhenya gets a queasy, sinking feeling in his gut when he spots it. His first instinct is to lie about what he did the night before, but with the severe look on Pavel’s face, he thinks twice of it.

“I met with my American contact,” he says slowly, “at his home.”

“Yes,” Pavel says. “I know that already.” He slides the folder across to Zhenya. “I asked if it was eventful. Did you get everything you wanted from your visit?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Zhenya’s hand hovers over the folder, but he’s afraid to touch it.

“Surely you do.” Pavel reaches out and lifts the corner of the folder. “Open it.”

Reluctantly, Zhenya opens the folder, revealing a stack of surveillance photos. He doesn’t _want_ to look, but he knows he has to.

The photos are incriminating, to say the least. There’s Zhenya and Sidney at the front door, Sidney’s hands a blur as he gestures. A set of grainy, zoomed-in shots of Sidney and Zhenya sitting side by side on the sofa, Zhenya’s chin propped on Sidney’s shoulder as they share the same section of the newspaper. Another shot, taken through the kitchen window, with Zhenya looming over Sidney at the sink, Sidney’s fingers on Zhenya’s jaw.

Zhenya standing at the front door, Sidney straightening his scarf for him, hands lingering on Zhenya’s chest.

Sidney, alone on the stairs, staring after Zhenya’s taxi with an unreadable look on his face.

There are more in the folder, but Zhenya doesn’t need to see. He closes the folder, pushes it away from him, and keeps his mouth shut. Pavel can say what he wants, but Zhenya’s not helping him out, not right now. He knows that his job means that he has no privacy, but this feels like it’s gone too far.

“A very eventful evening,” Pavel says. “You didn’t even look at them all.”

“I was there,” Zhenya says flatly. “I don’t need to see.”

“But I wasn’t there. I don’t know exactly what I’m looking at in these photos. Would you care to tell me the story, before I start to guess?” Pavel opens the folder and pulls out the photos from the kitchen. They’re slightly out-of-focus and they don’t show Sidney’s face, but the expression on Zhenya’s is pure desire. It floors him to see himself like that, and he wonders if that was what Sidney saw.

He wonders if Sidney _knows_.

Zhenya tips his head back and stares up at the ceiling. He just needs a moment to get his story straight before he tells Pavel.

Pavel raps his knuckles on the table. “Malkin. I’m waiting.”

Zhenya looks back at Pavel. “We couldn’t keep our regular meeting time, so I agreed to go with him to his home. I thought it would give me the opportunity to see him in a place where he would be less guarded, so I could begin gathering information from him on the Americans’ operations.”

“And this is your tactic?” Pavel flips through the photographs again until he gets to the final series, showing Sidney helping Zhenya with his scarf. The expression on Sidney’s face is soft and fond, something Zhenya didn’t notice at the time. Before Zhenya can process any of this, Pavel speaks up again. “Your tactics are … _unorthodox,_ to be sure. I’m not sure Moscow would react favorably to these. I would hate to have to explain these to our friends there, especially if you were unsuccessful. And, well, it would be equally shameful for your American _friend_ if these photos happened to find their way into his superiors’ hands, don’t you think?”

Pavel doesn’t need to be any more explicit in his threat for Zhenya to read this for what it is. Pavel sees the same things in these photographs as Zhenya does: inappropriately intimate moments, Zhenya’s barely-restrained desire in the kitchen, that fond look on Sidney’s face as Zhenya takes his leave. Zhenya knows that Pavel sees him for what he is now, and that he must be ready to walk a very fine line if he doesn’t want everything to be ruined.

“I was able to find his daily journal while I was there,” Zhenya says in a rush. He feels a bit sick over it -- he’d never _meant_ to find the journal, and he certainly hadn’t intended to tell Pavel about it once he did -- but he doesn’t see any other option. “He stores it in the back of his liquor cabinet, it’s very easy to find. I only saw a few pages, but he is very thorough.”

The smile that Pavel turns on Zhenya is cold and absolutely terrifying. “A journal, you say?” He tucks the photographs back into the folder and hands it to Zhenya. “How fascinating. I’m pleased to hear that your mission was a success, then.”

“Thank you.” Zhenya takes the folder and tries to keep a note of uncertainty out of his voice. He knows that Pavel isn’t just going to sit on this information, and he’s afraid for what he’s just unleashed on Sidney.

“You can go now. I admire your commitment to your role here, Evgeni. Very well played.” Pavel gestures at the door. “On your way back to your desk, could you file that folder? Things have such a habit of getting lost around here.”

Zhenya clutches the folder protectively to his chest as he stands. “Of course, Pavel. Thank you for allowing me to explain the intent behind my mission to you.”

He doesn’t wait for Pavel to respond and instead hurries back to his desk. Zhenya jams the folder in the back of a drawer before anyone can see it or ask what it is. If files keep getting lost at the office, then surely no one will miss this one, either.

 

*

 

Pavel’s thinly veiled threat weighs heavily on Zhenya. All because he still has the folder of photographs doesn’t mean that he’s safe from being exposed to Moscow. He doesn’t doubt that Pavel has the negatives hidden away somewhere, in case he needs to use them against Zhenya later. He doesn’t blame Pavel; he’d do the same if he were in Pavel’s position.

But still, he knows he needs to do something to distract Pavel from his speculation. Besides, he’s so tired of everyone at the embassy telling him that he would smile more if he had a nice girl to go home to, so taking Zoya out for drinks is the next best option.

Only, it turns out that Zoya isn’t actually the kind of girl his mama would want him to be spending his time with, because after only a few drinks, Zoya’s hand lands high on his thigh. She leans in close and, with her lips brushing his ear, practically demands to go back to his place.

Zhenya should say no, but her fingers are sliding along his inseam and he nods dumbly, because he feels so alone and maybe Zoya can fix that for a little while.

The drive back to Zhenya’s apartment building is short but it seems like it takes forever, with the way Zoya teases him, and he swears he’s going to hurt himself with how hard he’s grinding his teeth together to keep his concentration.

They stumble up the stairs to his floor, pausing at every landing to kiss, and Zhenya realizes how much he’s missed someone else’s touch. Zoya’s not who he would take home if he had more of a choice in the matter, but the soft curves of her body feel good under his hands as he presses her up against his front door. He wants her in a different way than he’s wanted Sidney since first setting eyes on him, but he still wants her in a way that feels genuine and true.

“Are you going to take me inside, Zhenya?” she asks, working her hands under his jacket to press against the broad planes of his chest. “Or are you giving your neighbors something to talk about, next time someone comes around to ask about you?”

She doesn’t know about him, she _couldn’t_ , but she’s also not _wrong_. It isn’t intentional that he’s got one hand working up her skirt at his front door in full view of his neighbors, but he knows that it certainly won’t hurt his cause, if Moscow ever finds out about Sidney.

“I can stop,” he says, and he drops one hand away from her so he can fish his keys out of his pocket.

“Don’t,” Zoya says. She takes the keys from his hands and spins around so she’s facing the door.

Zhenya’s hands land on her hips and he pulls her back against him, flush with his body. “Don’t _what_?”

“Don’t stop.” Zoya grinds against him as she fits the key to the lock. When she pushes the door open, they both stumble through, laughing as Zhenya kicks the door shut behind them.

 

*

 

The realization of why he decided to take Zoya out, instead of any of the other girls at the office, hits Zhenya at the worst possible moment.

Zoya is strong and confident and funny and pushy, small and compact, but not delicate at all. Her jet black hair tumbles down over her pale shoulders as she settles between his legs, and she keeps glancing up at him with her dark eyes. Zoya doesn’t waste time, and she wraps one hand around his cock before taking him in her mouth. Zhenya groans, because no matter what other problems he’s having, he’s missed having anyone’s hands on him other than his own, and he has _definitely_ missed this.

He reaches one hand down, brushing her hair back from her face, and lets his fingers rest on her cheek, not pushing her, just wanting to be able to touch her. When she tilts her head just right, the cut of her cheekbones and the slope of her nose look like they belong to someone else, and Zhenya finds himself holding his breath.

 _Fuck_.

Zoya could pass for the female version of Sidney, now that he thinks about it, and he’s furious with himself, because he went out with Zoya to get Sidney out of his head, and it hasn’t worked. When he looks at Zoya, he’s no longer seeing the curves of her body, her long hair falling over his thighs, the smear of blood-red lipstick on his cock as she bobs up and down. He’s imagining Sidney instead, and Zhenya moans at the thought of it, feeling closer to the edge now that he’s replacing Zoya’s features with Sidney’s, imagining short black hair and his determined glare and strong hands. Every time she looks up at him through her long lashes, he has a hard time not just taking over and fucking up into her mouth, because it’s not Zoya he’s thinking about anymore. Zhenya pushes at Zoya’s shoulder, needing to get her off of him, because she doesn’t deserve to be used like that.

“Zoya, Zoya, I--” Zhenya manages to gasp out, because that’s enough, that’s all he can take before he loses control of himself. Zoya pulls off with a soft pop, and Zhenya pushes himself up on one elbow. His eyes fall shut as he grabs his cock, jacking himself rough and fast to get there. Zhenya’s shoulders curl in and he bites down on his lip so hard that he tastes blood, but it’s the only thing that keeps Sidney’s name _inside_ as he twists his hand, almost viciously, and comes hard over his fist.

It takes him a few moments to come back to himself, and when he does, all he hears is his own harsh panting. Zoya’s still on her knees in front of him, staring at him with a curious look. “Good?” she asks him, and all he can do is grunt. Zoya presses a kiss to the inside of his thigh then stands in one smooth, graceful movement and goes to sit next to him on the bed. The mattress dips under her as she sits down and Zhenya rolls towards her, pressing his face into her thigh. “You’re a strange one, Zhenya,” she says, carding her fingers through his hair.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he mumbles.

“It’s nothing. You’re just not like the other men here, that’s all.” Zoya pushes his hair back from his brow, still slick with sweat, and smiles fondly at him. “And you’re lost in here a lot,” she adds, pressing her fingers to his temple. “Why do you hide from everyone?” He doesn’t answer, and doesn’t think she expects him to. “You don’t have to tell me, but you could. It would be alright.”

Zhenya shakes his head. “Thanks, but no.” His limbs feel heavy and leaden, but he manages to lift his arm and rest his hand on her knee. “It’s my burden, not yours.” She knows why Moscow placed him at the embassy, but that’s the only secret she’s going to get out of Zhenya.

Zoya cards her fingers through his hair. “I already know what Pavel says about you.” Her fingernails scratch against his scalp and he makes a quiet, satisfied noise, feeling wrung out. He can’t even bring himself to care what rumors Pavel is spreading.

“And? You believe everything Pavel tells you?”

She runs one fingertip along the shell of Zhenya’s ear; he shudders and curls against her. “Zhenya, I help Pavel’s surveillance team,” she says softly. “You need to be more careful.”

Zhenya pulls away from her and leans up on one elbow. “I’m not hiding anything.”

“Zhenya.” She shoves at his shoulder and presses her lips into a firm line. “It’s your life. But it’s your funeral, too.”

“I’m not--”

“I have the negatives, Zhenya. Pavel gave you the photos, but I have the negatives.”

Zhenya sits up and tugs a sheet over his lap. He turns away from Zoya, his shoulders curling in. “I’m not using you, you’re not … this isn’t to distract Pavel.”

Zoya slides behind Zhenya and hooks her chin over his shoulder. “I know.” She presses a kiss to his neck, nips in with her teeth before soothing it over with her tongue. “But it helps.”

Zhenya sighs, shoulders slumping in defeat. “It does,” he admits.

After pressing another kiss to Zhenya’s temple, Zoya slips out of bed and begins gathering her clothes. She dresses in silence, and when she’s done, she stands before Zhenya and takes his face in her hands. “I hope he’s worth it.”

“There’s nothing _there_ , Zoya,” Zhenya says, and he hates how bitter he sounds.

“Really?” She leans in and kisses him just once, slow and even. “Who am I going to tell? Who’s ever going to believe me?” Zoya wipes a smudge of lipstick off of Zhenya’s face, then runs her fingers through his hair. “I hope he treats you well, Zhenya, and I hope he’s worth it.”

“We’re not talking about this.” Zhenya pulls away and stands up, gathering up his clothes and dressing, steadfastly avoiding looking at Zoya again. “Come on,” he says, “I’ll call you a taxi, it’s late.”

 

*

 

After Zoya leaves, Zhenya takes a shower and tries to figure out other ways to get Sidney out of his head. Only that doesn’t work, because then he starts imagining Sidney in the shower with him, about pressing Sidney up against the tile wall and spreading him open. Zhenya has given up on feeling ashamed of this and instead embraces it.

He should be more upset about what happened with Zoya. He should be more upset that she knows more of his secrets than he wanted her to know. But he can’t focus.

Zhenya wants his life back. He wants to have something for himself, something that isn’t tainted by Pavel pulling strings in the background.

He knows what he has to do, even if it kills the scared nineteen-year old inside of him, the boy who cautiously shook the General’s hand to sign his life over to the KGB.

That boy didn’t know what he was getting into. Zhenya is older and wiser and so desperately wants for things to change.

Zhenya towels off after his shower and gets dressed again, even though it’s the middle of the night. He’s exhausted, wrung out, between Zoya and his own fears, and he should just go to sleep, but instead, he pulls on a sweater and a pair of trousers and goes to the kitchen for a knife, then goes to the den to sit at his desk. He pulls open the top drawer and empties it of handfuls of pencils and notepads and crumpled up dollar bills, then slides the knife along the edges of the flat bottom until he hears something pop.

Purely out of habit, Zhenya looks back over his shoulder before lifting out the false bottom of the drawer, then quickly paws through the scraps of paper that fill it. Hiding inside the drawer are all of the secrets Zhenya isn’t supposed to have. Pavel still tells him what to pass to Sidney, but ever since Pavel threatened to expose him to Moscow, Zhenya’s found himself committing different information to memory. A bank account number, a set of coordinates, a safe house address. The information is still active, and dangerous for him to have, but lately, Zhenya’s been so furious with Moscow that this is his retribution. If they’re asking him to fake his treason, he thinks that it makes the lie easier if he starts giving Sidney real information every once in a while.

He finds the information he wanted and snatches the paper up, then refits the bottom of the drawer and returns everything to its rightful place, even down to the knife in the kitchen. Before he can talk himself out of it, he pulls on a jacket and heads for his car.

Practically on automatic, Zhenya drives to Sidney’s neighborhood. Zhenya’s visited Sidney’s house a few more times since that first incriminating visit. He knows full well that he shouldn’t, because he doesn’t doubt for a second that Pavel is still watching him, but he can’t seem to stop himself from accepting Sidney’s invitations.

Aside from Pavel’s probable surveillance, Zhenya knows that he needs to follow Sidney’s rules for visitors to the letter, every time. He parks three blocks away, then takes a convoluted path of alleyways and back-yard shortcuts to wind up on Sidney’s doorstep. He rings the doorbell with three short bursts. It takes longer than usual, but eventually he hears the heavy thud of footsteps on the other side of the door, the sound of Sidney unlocking the front door; the deadbolt clicks three, four, five times, before Sidney cracks the door open and peers out.

Sidney looks surprised, but at least he doesn’t turn him away. “Come on in,” he says, quickly ushering Zhenya inside. Zhenya takes his shoes off in the entryway and sets them in the left corner of the rug, like he knows he’s supposed to. Behind him, Sidney goes through his ritual for locking the door. When he finally faces Zhenya, he looks exhausted.

“Did I wake you?” Zhenya asks.

Sidney smiles sadly. “What does it look like?” His fingers pluck at his tie, loose around his neck, and Zhenya realizes that Sidney’s still dressed for work.

“Ah.” Zhenya shoves his hands in his pockets and frowns. “Sorry. I know, is very late.”

“I was up.” Sidney shrugs. “Get you a drink?”

Zhenya should say no, but he doesn’t. “Whatever you’re having.”

“Come on, then.” He gestures towards the liquor cabinet, already hanging open, bottle of whiskey out. Zhenya moves towards the cabinet, but Sidney dismisses him with a wave. “Sit down, I’ve got you.” After all this time, Zhenya knows better than to argue with Sidney, so he takes a seat on the sofa, angling himself so that he can still see the door, and out the front window.

Sidney pours him a drink, refills his own, and then heads over to the sofa. There’s plenty of room, but he sits right next to Zhenya: even in his own home, Sidney doesn’t like having his back to the door either. This is their compromise, sitting inappropriately close together so that both of their natures are satisfied. “To late nights,” he says, lifting his glass to Zhenya’s. They clink the rims together, and Sidney takes a long gulp, nearly draining his glass.

Zhenya takes a sip but mostly just watches Sidney swallow. “Should I ask what’s wrong?”

Sidney’s answer is quick. “No.” He shakes his head. “Work. There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s fine.” Clearly Sidney isn’t fine, but Zhenya knows better than to push. With the mood they’re both in tonight, Zhenya worries about one of them doing something they may regret. “What brings you out?”

Zhenya puts his drink down, scrubs one hand through his still-wet hair, then reaches into his pocket to produce a scrap of paper. “Here.” He drops the paper into Sidney’s outstretched hand and represses a shiver whenever his fingers brush against Sidney’s palm. “Coordinates for safe house. Try to get someone out soon. High level, KGB, very important. Probably move them in week, maybe two.”

He’s in the midst of pulling his hand back when Sidney grabs his wrist, and his fingers close around him with surprising tightness. “Why are you giving me this?”

 _Why?_ _Because I think I love you_ , Zhenya thinks. _Because I just had a beautiful woman on her knees for me and all I could think of was that it should be you. Because all I can see is your face when I close my eyes. Because I needed an excuse to see you, not just imagine you. Because I am tired of lying._

Zhenya doesn’t say any of that. He just stares at Sidney’s fingers, held fast around his wrist. “Because that’s our jobs,” he says, voice flat. “I’m tell you secrets. Is what I do, I’m _best_ traitor.”

Instead of letting go, Sidney’s grip gets tighter. “Can this be traced back to you?” His eyes are wild, and Zhenya desperately wants to know what’s got him so on edge.

He shakes his head. “No. Steal from Pavel’s files, no one know. Not even my assignment, no reason to look at me.”

“Why now?” Sidney asks. “If they’re not moving the operative yet, why now? Why tonight?”

Zhenya covers Sidney’s hand with his, and actually tells the truth. “I have bad day,” he admits. “Bad night, date with girl who maybe I shouldn’t take out.” Sidney’s staring at him, and Zhenya thinks he’s probably said too much, but he keeps going. “Rather do this than sit at home, be stuck in head, so.” He works his fingers underneath Sidney’s until his grip is broken, then pulls both of his hands away, back into his lap. “So, here I am.”

Sidney draws his arm back in and raises his eyebrows. “You’re sharing state secrets that I didn’t even ask for, all because you didn't get laid?”

Zhenya can tell that Sidney doesn’t believe that for a second, but it’s as close to the truth as he can get without telling too much. “I didn't say that,” he responds, letting the smallest of smiles tug at his lips. “I’m just say she’s not right girl. Your mind dirty.”

Sidney blushes and looks away. “That’s… even if… you don’t have to…” He jams his hands in his pockets and looks down at the floor. “That’s your business, it doesn’t matter.”

The way Sidney’s cheeks flame up makes Zhenya sit up straight. He wants to lean in and feel the heat of Sidney’s skin against his fingertips. He wants to tell Sidney why he sent Zoya home, but he can’t, he _won’t_. “So serious,” he says instead, voice coming out more husky than he’d anticipated. “I’m here now, is important.”

“Right.” Sidney clears his throat. “Well.”

“You sure everything okay?” Everything about Sidney tonight is a step off. It’s not just the late night visit, it’s not just Zhenya’s casual admission about Zoya. It’s something _else_.

Sidney shifts uncomfortably. “It’s nothing. It’s work, like I said.”

“Sidney, is okay,” Zhenya says. “You can tell me.”

Sidney’s hands twist together in his lap. He looks on the verge of saying something, so Zhenya decides to wait him out. Finally, he exhales and flattens his palms against his thighs. “My house was broken into last week,” he says. “Nothing was _taken_ , and I’m fine, but things are … just not right.”

Suddenly, Sidney’s agitation makes complete sense. Zhenya feels his stomach drop; he can’t know for sure that his people were responsible for this, but it’s almost definitely a sure thing. “If nothing gone, how you know?”

Sidney arches an eyebrow. “Come on, Evgeni, I count my silverware every time I do dishes. The ties in my closet get hung in the same order every day. You think I wouldn’t be able to tell when someone’s been snooping around in here?”

“Oh.” Zhenya has to concede that point to Sidney; even the KGB’s best would be no match for the obsessive order Sidney exerts over his life. “Who you think did?”

That eyebrow arches higher. “You know my case load by now,” Sidney says. “You tell _me_.”

Zhenya’s face falls. “I’m just check. I …” He frowns, searching for the right words. “I want... want to be wrong, not think is my country who do this.”

Sidney leans over and rests one hand on Zhenya’s arm. “I don’t think they’re on to you, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s… it’s part of my job, knowing that these things can happen. But.”

“But?”

“But, just.” Sidney sighs. “Be careful. Be observant. This was specifically targeted at me, my team is already dealing with it, but don’t let your guard down, alright?”

“I’m most careful,” Zhenya says. He pats Sidney’s hand, then leaves his hand there, fingers light against Sidney’s knuckles. “You be careful, too. I’m keep good eye out, for me, but you do, too.”

“Promise me,” Sidney says. There’s a desperate tone to his voice that Zhenya’s never heard before and it puts Zhenya on edge.

“If _you_ promise me.” Zhenya squeezes Sidney’s hand. “I’m go to office tomorrow, keep listen for clues, maybe I hear something. Make sure no one follow me anywhere. Everything gonna be fine for me, Sidney. Is your house with problem. So you promise _me_ , be careful. If things like you say, if this work of _my_ country? Then you know, is dangerous.”

Sidney offers up a hint of a smile. “I promise,” he says. “I’ll be careful.”

Zhenya doesn’t think that just being _careful_ is going to be enough against the KGB, but for now, this is all he can do.

 

*

 

“Did you have a good night out with Zoya?”

Zhenya frowns; he’s not surprised that Pavel knows, but he hates it nonetheless. “Yes,” he responds as he fidgets in Pavel’s doorway. “I had a good time, she’s a very nice girl.”

Pavel smiles; it doesn’t reach his eyes, and it sends a chill down Zhenya’s spine. “I’m glad to hear that. And your evening with your American friend? How was that?”

Zhenya stands straight and tall and stares down Pavel. Something hot and furious curls through his body and he clenches his fists and spits out the first question that comes to mind. “Why are you watching me? 

“We’re watching _him_ ,” Pavel corrects. “You two just happen to spend a significant amount of time together.”

“I’m doing my _job_ , Pavel. You asked me to get close to him, and I have. You asked me to deliver American intel to you, and I have. Leave it be, Pavel. Allow me to complete my work without questioning me on this.”

Pavel tilts his head to the side and arches an eyebrow. “I’m beginning to think that our friends in Moscow never completely understood you, Evgeni,” he says softly, in perfect counterpoint to Zhenya’s barely contained rage. “I’m doing _my_ job. I’m surprised that you have the nerve to question that. You have been very lucky so far, since I’ve chosen not to file more thorough reports to my superiors. Make no mistake, however; you continue to serve in your post at my pleasure, no matter who sings your praises from Moscow. You have delivered excellent information to us, and for that I am grateful. But whatever game you’re playing with this American, it’s a dangerous one. I would advise you to tread carefully as you continue, unless you would like me to make _certain things_ clear to our colleagues.”

Zhenya’s voice drops to match Pavel’s. “Is that a threat?”

“Don’t be silly.” Pavel’s smile grows ever wider. “Of course it is.” He leans back in his chair and presses his palms flat on his desk. “Now get back to work, before I decide to follow through with my suspicions.”

Zhenya has no choice and he knows it. Pavel has the upper hand; he’s always had the advantage. “Yes, sir,” he says, then makes a hasty retreat back to his desk.

 

*

 

Zhenya can’t get Pavel’s threat out of his head. Ever since Pavel presented him with that first batch of photographs, Zhenya’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop. He doesn’t want to go to war with Pavel over this, but every time he thinks of Sidney triple-checking his locks and sweeping daily for bugs, he struggles to come up with a reason why he shouldn’t.

He passes the time on his walk from his car to the diner by contemplating just what he can tell Sidney without creating too many more questions. Zhenya doesn’t even notice that Sidney’s car is already parked out front until he’s at the diner’s door and hears a horn honk behind him 

Zhenya startles and whirls around, looking wildly around until he spots Sidney’s car. Inside, Sidney leans over and pushes open the passenger door. “Get in,” he says, patting the seat next to him. “We’re doing something different today.”

It occurs to Zhenya that he should _do_ something, but he doesn’t move until Sidney calls out his name. “Evgeni. We’re wasting time. Get in the car.”

That edge is back to Sidney’s voice. Zhenya imagines it’s the same tone he uses with junior agents who don’t follow his rules, and that isn’t company that Zhenya wants to keep. He slides into the seat and pulls the door shut behind him.

“What so important you change routine again?” Zhenya asks as he settles into his seat and Sidney peels out onto the road.

Sidney stares straight ahead at the road, hands at ten-and-two on the wheel, grip so tight that Zhenya cringes. “I need to talk to you.”

“We talk at diner, you know.”

“Not there.” Sidney shakes his head. “Somewhere with less ears.” He pauses and cuts a glance over at Zhenya. “I mean, where no one will overhear us.”

“Know what that means,” Zhenya says. “Maybe _now_ I should worry, you take me in forest and leave me.”

“No!” Sidney snaps his attention to the right to stare at Zhenya, looking horrified at the mere suggestion. “You don’t actually think that?”

“Sidney, calm down.” Zhenya reaches across the seats and bumps his fist against Sidney’s thigh. “Is joke, but bad one. Don’t be so serious.”

Sidney looks back at the road and exhales slowly. “Sorry. There isn’t much joking around in this job these days.”

“Is really that bad?”

“Yeah, it really is, Evgeni.”

“Alright.” Zhenya uncurls his fist and leaves his hand on Sidney’s seat, fingertips just brushing against Sidney’s leg. “No more bad jokes. I wait, see what you want to say.”

Sidney drops his hand from the stick shift and lets it hover for a long moment before covering Zhenya’s hand. Zhenya holds himself very still and stays quiet, afraid to break the spell, afraid to make Sidney pull away before he has to.

Every time he finishes changing gears, Sidney slides his hand down to curls his fingers around Zhenya’s hand. Zhenya can only stare; just once, he turns his hand palm up so they can lace their fingers together. He doesn’t know what they’re doing and he’s absolutely not going to ask.

They drive in silence along the Potomac until Sidney pulls off to the side of the road. The river flows alongside the road, down a long embankment, and a long wooden bridge connects the mainland to an overgrown island in the middle of the river. Zhenya doesn’t know where they are and if he was with anyone other than Sidney -- Sidney, who spent most of the drive holding his hand but refusing to talk about it -- he’d worry.

“We’re here,” Sidney says as he throws the car into park and then kills the ignition. Sidney doesn’t wait for Zhenya to get out before he swings his door open and climbs out. “It’s Roosevelt Island. It should be … we should be fine, no one comes out here. We’re going across the bridge, just let me…” His words are muffled as he pops open the trunk and leans in.

When Sidney emerges, he’s holding a large basket, which he shoves at Zhenya. “Come on, take this. Over the bridge.”

Zhenya ignores him and takes the basket before lifting up the flap to peer inside. “What this? You bring breakfast?”

“Yes.” Sidney turns back to push the flap closed. “And you’ll let it get cold if you keep opening the basket. Now, come on, across the bridge, let’s go.”

“ _Da, kapitan,_ ” Zhenya mutters, earning a sharp look from Sidney. He follows along though, over the bridge and onto the island.

Every time Zhenya starts to speak, Sidney silences him with a sharp gaze. He’s in a rare mood today, Zhenya’s gathered, so eventually he stops trying to make polite conversation and falls into step next to Sidney instead. They wind their way through the overgrown brush, taking one barely visible path after another, until Zhenya feels compelled to speak up.

“We not lost, are we?”

Sidney turns around and grimaces. “I know where we are. I think.”

Zhenya tosses his head back and laughs. Leave it to Sidney to demand they go on this adventure, but then have no idea where he’s going. “This trip your idea,” he says through his laughter now that Sidney’s scowl is out in full force. “Your idea, you _still_ get us lost. Should bring compass for you, if this what happen.”

“Everything is fine. We’re almost there. I _have_ been here before.”

“Sure, sure, I believe.” Zhenya grins and slaps Sidney on the back. “Ten minutes more I’m give you, then I’m eat without you.”

“Quiet.” Sidney rolls his eyes and socks Zhenya in the arm. “We’re almost there. It’s worth it, you’ll see.”

True to his word, it only takes a few more minutes of walking before Zhenya hears the steady lap and flow of the Potomac. Sidney pushes aside a low branch and suddenly they’re standing on the riverbank. “Told you,” Sidney says, turning a sly grin on Zhenya, one corner of his mouth quirked up.

“I _guess_ is okay.” Zhenya rolls his eyes and does his best to look put out, but it’s hard, because he’s standing alone with Sidney on an island, clutching a picnic basket full of food that Sidney made for them.

“You _guess_?” Sidney lifts his eyebrows and looks like he’s ready to argue until he catches the smile that curls across Zhenya’s lips. “You’re ridiculous. Come on, over here.”

Sidney leads them to a fallen log, just off the bank, still shrouded by trees. They can see the river, but no one can see them. If he were there with anyone else -- if he actually wanted to pursue Zoya the way everyone at work wants him to -- the spot would be romantic. But this is Sidney, and Zhenya knows he can’t have that.

“Nice spot,” Zhenya announces. He brushes some leaves off of the log then lowers himself to sit. “Very nice. Quiet, you hide back here. Bet you take pretty girls here, be alone.”

Sidney stops before he sits and looks at Zhenya; the hurt expression that crosses his face slides away so quickly that Zhenya isn’t even sure that he saw it at all. “No,” he says finally as he sits down. “No, only surly Soviet defectors who ask too many questions.”

“That good thing, or bad?” Zhenya chooses not to point out that he hasn’t technically defected. He’s sure that there’s some sort of paperwork for that.

“I don’t know anymore,” Sidney says. “You decide.”

Zhenya sets the basket on the log next to him and opens the flap. He needs to buy himself time before responding, because he doesn’t _want_ Sidney to have quiet, private moments with pretty girls. No matter how improbable, Zhenya wants Sidney all to himself. “Is good,” he says finally, keeping his attention focused on the basket. “But someday, you find girl, bring her here instead of, what you say? Surly Soviet defector.”

“I doubt it,” Sidney says. He reaches over Zhenya and pulls a thermos out of the basket. “But it’s nice that you think I could do that.”

Zhenya raises his eyebrows. “Do what? Get pretty girl?” Sidney nods in response. “Of course you can, _you_ just not try. Spend too much time with _me_ , too much at work.” He turns and looks at Sidney and, after a moment of hesitation, reaches over to press his fingers against Sidney’s temple. “Spend too much time in here. You quiet, hard to know.”

Sidney closes his eyes and tilts his head, pushing Zhenya’s fingers into his hair. “Is that such a bad thing?”

It’s too early in the morning for Zhenya to have so many difficult feelings about Sidney, but he’s powerless to stop them. He thinks about that night in the kitchen, with Sidney’s body pressed flush against his. He thinks about the feel of Sidney’s hand on his chest, Sidney’s fingers against his jaw.

Zhenya thinks about the surveillance photos that Pavel showed him. He thinks about Zoya, holding on to the negatives and giving Zhenya cover, if he needs it.

Zhenya thinks that he wants his life back, after hiding for so long.

Zhenya cards his fingers through Sidney’s hair. “I like.”

He watches Sidney swallow heavily, eyes still closed, face tilted away. He wants to lean in and kiss him, work his way down the long column of his neck, lay him out and feel him come undone, but Zhenya can barely even convince himself to really let Sidney in on his secrets. This is as close as he’s managed to get, and his heart feels ready to beat right out of his chest.

“I like,” Zhenya repeats. He watches with fascination as Sidney leans into his touch. “You have hard life, hard job. Being alone not easy, no one come home for after shit day. Too much danger, long hour, so many secrets. You not think I have secrets too, secrets make my life in Moscow very hard? Is not easy here, have to hide lots. But, you? Someone out there who understand, you find, make life together, be happy.” Zhenya slides his hand from Sidney’s hair, down to rest at the back of Sidney’s neck. “And someday, all this work and danger, someday, it done. Life not always like this, you know that.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Sidney whispers. “To have that life. I really don’t know what they told you over there, before you came here, but nothing is ever that easy, Evgeni.”

Zhenya squeezes Sidney’s neck, just enough to get his attention. “ _Zhenya_. We friends, you and me, _da_? Friends for long time now. So you call me that. You think you have nothing? You think everything too hard? You have me, not forget.” His words sound more fierce than he’d intended, but he means it, every last word. No matter what else happens, Zhenya’s got Sidney’s back, even if they are on opposite sides of a brewing war.

“Zhenya,” Sidney repeats, taking his time with the name to get it just right. Zhenya nods and Sidney rewards him with a tired smile. “Thank you.”

Sidney tips his head back and rolls his shoulders, slowly relaxing underneath Zhenya’s hand. “There is something you should know.” Zhenya says nothing, only moves his fingers through the hair at the nape of Sidney’s neck. “Work, my ASAC, everyone, they need more from me. Since the break-in, I’ve been on thin ice. They want more, but everything’s drying up." 

Zhenya thinks he knows what Sidney’s asking for, even though he won’t come out and say it. “I’m listen, then, keep watch on office, see what I find for you. 

“No.” Sidney’s shoulders tense up. “No, you’ve already given me more than I’ve ever even asked for. There are other people I can lean on, don’t put yourself in danger for me.”

“But you say no one else give you anything. I’m still can be useful, still see everything in office. Let me.”

Sidney twists out of Zhenya’s grip and turns to face him. “ _No_ , Ev-- _Zhenya_. No. You need to lie low for a while, stay out of trouble, stay clean. The information you gave me on the safehouse, we’re moving on it soon. The agents watching Ivanov think he’s going to be shipped out in a few days. I don’t want you to do anything to make you stand out. This is a big catch, if we bring him in, and we both know your people aren’t going to be happy about losing him. You need to stay away until it’s safe again.”

“Only two, three people know Ivanov, where I am. Is no risk, promise.”

“Don’t make me ask again.” Sidney reaches out and grabs Zhenya by the wrist. “If you get caught up in it, by your people or mine, I don’t know if I’ll be able to protect you. That’s what I brought you out here to tell you. You’re not supposed to know, no one’s supposed to know outside of the team going in, but. I couldn’t… if something were to happen... “ He stops, shakes his head. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You need to stay away.”

It’s against Zhenya’s nature to want to stay out of the way when he could be doing something to help, but there’s something wild in Sidney’s eyes that gives Zhenya pause, even more so than his iron-tight grip, his fingers digging into the underside of Zhenya’s wrist. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, Sidney, I promise. I’m go to work, do real job, keep quiet, wait to hear from you. I’m tell you, no one guess I’m do this, but for you, extra careful. Promise.”

Sidney exhales. “Thank you.”

“Everything gonna be fine, Sidney,” Zhenya says. He slings his arm around Sidney’s shoulders and pulls him in close. “You worry so much.”

Slowly, Sidney relaxes and leans against Zhenya. “Who else here is going to worry about you?”

As Zhenya thinks this over, he lets his fingers run in soft circles across Sidney’s arm. Zoya would, he thinks, and maybe Kolya, but he also knows deep down that not a single one of them would warn him to stay away from an operation that could get him in trouble. Not like Sidney.

“Just you, mostly. Is not bad thing, I don’t think.” Zhenya tips his head to the side, barely resting it up against Sidney’s. “Feed me picnic breakfast, drive me to island but don’t dump me in river.” His fingers squeeze at Sidney’s shoulder. “Is nice, here with you. Could do this all time, I’m think.”

Sidney doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t pull away, either. In fact, he slowly leans in towards Zhenya, angling his head so that his face is buried in the crook of Zhenya’s neck, his breath hot against Zhenya’s skin.

Zhenya’s reluctant to say anything else for fear of breaking the spell, so he stays put and watches the ebb and flow of the river, Sidney curled up warm and content next to him. Maybe this is all he’ll ever have, he thinks.

Maybe he’ll be okay with it.

 

*

 

Everything is quiet.

 _Too_ quiet.

Zhenya spends his days waiting for something awful to happen. He can’t guess when, or where, or why, though, and the waiting is driving him mad. Zhenya’s kept his promise to stay away from the Ivanov mess, so he’s completely in the dark, especially since Sidney hasn’t given him the all-clear yet.

Lost in his own thoughts, Zhenya nearly misses the commotion in Pavel’s office.

“Don’t,” Zoya says, snagging Zhenya by the arm and pulling him past the door. “You don’t want to get in their way, Zhenya.”

Zhenya looks back over his shoulder at Pavel’s office, filled with men in uniform who are rifling through Pavel’s files.

“What’s happening?”

“Quiet,” Zoya snaps. She grips Zhenya’s arm tight and drags him down the hall, into an empty office, away from the stunned silence of the rest of the floor.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or are we going to hide in here?” Zhenya asks after the door’s been shut and locked.

Zoya perches on the edge of the desk. “It’s Pavel.”

“I assumed, yes. What about Pavel?” Zhenya turns around and tweaks the blinds in the office to peek out.

“Get away from there, Zhenya, someone will see,” Zoya scolds. “Did you hear about Ivanov?”

Zhenya’s glad that he’s turned away, because he doesn’t know if he can keep his face neutral. “Pavel’s moving him up north, isn’t he?”

“ _Was_.”

Zhenya turns back around. A normal person would be surprised by this, and Zhenya desperately needs to be normal right now. “What does that mean?”

“The Americans raided the safehouse, right after the move. FBI, they picked up Ivanov. The location’s burned, no one’s heard from Ivanov. They’re thinking he’s going to flip. He was never that solid for us anyway, but everyone’s still worried. He knows a lot of names, if nothing else.”

“A shame,” Zhenya says after some thought, “but someone has it under control, right? What does this have to do with Pavel?”

Zoya arches her eyebrows. “Don’t be stupid. You know this was Pavel’s operation. The General doesn’t take kindly to botched operations and lost operatives.”

Zhenya feels his whole body go cold at that. If he’s learned anything since coming to America, it’s that the General takes a terrible sort of pleasure in dealing with failure. “Is Pavel…?” Zhenya doesn’t want to say it, but Zoya knows what he’s asking.

“They shot him last night, and now they’re going through his case files to see what he’s been hiding.” Zoya’s delivery is cold and efficient; it’s the KGB way, after all.

“I see.” Zhenya lets go of the blinds and represses a shudder. “And Masha?”

“At her desk like a good girl, telling callers that Pavel’s unable to take their calls right now.” Zoya looks down, suddenly very interested in the hem of her skirt. “If they were smart, they’d give her Pavel’s job. She hasn’t shed a single tear, you know.”

Zhenya thinks that sounds terrible. He thinks that Masha should get to leave this place and never look back, but Zoya’s right, they’ll probably promote her for being true to her country, instead. Sometimes, he _hates_ what he does, and never moreso than right not. “So they think Pavel was responsible for the Americans finding out?”

“Who knows?” Zoya hops off the table and goes to stand next to Zhenya. “The point is, Ivanov’s gone, and someone had to pay the price for it.” She rests her hand against Zhenya’s back. “Be careful, Zhenya. If you’re mixed up in this…”

He turns to her and frowns. “Don’t say it.”

“I don’t want to see this happen to you.” Zoya turns away and tweaks the blinds open so she can peer out. “Just be careful, that’s all.”

Zhenya doesn’t answer her. He’s tired of being careful. He wants to be done with this. He’s so tired of living in fear.

He peers back out through the opened blinds, but ducks away with Zoya just as the men in uniform file back out, toting boxes of files. “Poor Masha.”

“Poor all of us,” Zoya corrects. “Whoever they send to replace Pavel will be a thousand times worse than he was, you know.”

Zhenya knows firsthand how terrible Pavel could be, and he’s terrified.

 

*

 

Two more weeks go by before Sidney signals an all-clear to Zhenya. There’s another piece of paper wedged up underneath the number seven on Zhenya’s front door. Sidney’s blocky handwriting is immediately recognizable on the crossed-off list of groceries.

He can’t tell if the grocery list is a coded message or not -- if it is, it’s not using any system that Zhenya’s ever used before -- so he decides to show up at the diner the next morning. If he’s wrong, at least he’ll get breakfast while trying to figure out what Sidney had intended.

After twenty minutes, two cups of coffee, and countless confused looks from Alma, Zhenya starts to worry. Maybe it _was_ a code, maybe this is a set-up, maybe the note wasn’t from Sidney at all. The longer he has to think about it, the more paranoid he grows. Maybe Pavel is trying to trap Zhenya. Or maybe he’s trying to trap _Sidney_. Whatever’s going on, Zhenya doesn’t like it at all.

It takes another fifteen minutes for the bells over the front door to jingle again. Sidney walks in, and Zhenya’s startled to see how awful he looks. His tie’s loose around his neck, he’s disheveled, he looks like he hasn’t slept in a week.

“I’m worried,” Zhenya says as Sidney slides into his chair. “You never late.”

Sidney shoots Zhenya a look, like he doesn’t want to talk about it, but eventually he relents. “The locks,” he says, “they weren’t right. I didn’t think you’d wait this long.”

“For you? I wait all day.” Zhenya’s seen this before, the ways that something seems to slip out of place in Sidney’s mind every so often, and he never knows what to do about it. “Is okay now, though?”

“I had to keep starting over.”

“But is okay now?”

“It was too much change all at once.” Sidney sips his coffee and stares straight at the table. “Changing our routine, changing things at work… the locks couldn’t keep up.”

Zhenya reaches out across the table and rests his hand on Sidney’s wrist, right over the undone cuffs of his shirtsleeves. “You not making sense, Sidney.”

Sidney looks up and flashes Zhenya a sad smile. “I know.” He lets silence fall over them for a while. Zhenya’s coffee’s been empty for a while, and he must look at Sidney’s mug with such longing that Sidney pushes his own across the table. “Let’s not. That’s enough. Tell me about work,” he says as he nudges the mug in place in front of Zhenya.

“Pavel’s gone.” It’s Zhenya’s turn to stare down at the table. “They clean his office, take his files, because of…” He pauses and looks around them. “Because, you know why.”

“Gone?”

Zhenya presses his index finger to his temple and twitches his thumb, miming a gun. “That kind of gone.”

“You know for sure?”

“I’m not see, if that what you ask.”

“But…?”

“He’s gone. Believe me. No one here to take place yet, but everyone think someone worse than Pavel.”

“No one suspects you, though?”

“Me? Never. I’m perfect, just do job, is all.” He takes a sip of Sidney’s coffee, then slides the mug back to the middle of the table. “Everyone think Pavel did. Moscow send men, they go through Pavel’s office, take files. That’s excuse they give for what they do, that Pavel was who told.”

Sidney reaches for the mug, brushing his fingers against Zhenya’s as he pulls it back. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Zhenya leaves his hands flat on the table between them. “I’m always okay,” he says. “But you look terrible.”

“I told you, the locks--”

Zhenya shakes his head. “Is not just for locks, I _know_ you, is something else.” He stares at Sidney like he’s a puzzle, then comes to a quick decision. “Come on, get up.”

“What? Why?” Sidney looks up as Zhenya looms over him.

“Just do, come on.” Zhenya grabs Sidney’s arm and tugs him out of his seat. “Alma will leave food, she know we here.” Despite Sidney’s protests, Zhenya steers him to the restroom, one hand at the small of his back as he marches him through the door.

“What? Zhenya, no, this is ridiculous.”

Zhenya shoves the trash bin in front of the door to block anyone else from coming in. “Quiet, you. Take off jacket, we fix.” He doesn’t give Sidney time to reply, and instead starts pushing his suit jacket down over his shoulders. Zhenya’s not only bigger; he’s more determined than Sidney, so he makes short work of the jacket, spinning Sidney about to pull the jacket off over his arms.

“This is _ridiculous_ ,” Sidney grumbles as Zhenya hangs the jacket off of the doorknob. “I can take care of myself.”

“Not say you can’t,” Zhenya says. He pushes Sidney in front of the mirror, pops his collar up, and undoes his tie. “But you go to work like this? Look like you dress in dark. You in own world, head filled with work, not even notice.” As Zhenya talks, he unfastens his own cufflinks and reaches around Sidney to slip them into place in his cuffs instead.

“I was going to, after we ate,” Sidney complains. “Come on, you don’t have to do that.”

“You give back later, is okay.” Zhenya presses Sidney’s arms back to his sides, then reaches up to the tie, straightening it again before tying it carefully. He won’t allow himself the luxury of thinking about how intimate this is, pressed flush against Sidney’s back. Zhenya takes his time to get Sidney’s necktie just right, looping the fabric under and around, but he can’t help but notice the way Sidney’s skin heats up, the longer they stand like this.

“That’s… that’s not the point.” Sidney’s voice quavers. Zhenya meets his eyes in the mirror and grins as he puts Sidney’s collar back in place and straightens the tie.

“Look.” Zhenya takes Sidney by the shoulders and turns him back around. “All I can do for you is this, is fix tie.” He hands Sidney his jacket and watches as Sidney slides back into it. “Can’t fix anything else. Give you work secrets, yes. Make locks good, make routine easy, no.” He tugs at the starched collar one last time, then slides his hands over Sidney’s tie, straightening it out. “So let me.” He buttons the top button of Sidney’s jacket, then rests his hands on Sidney’s chest.

Zhenya knows what this looks like and he doesn’t care.

Pavel is not in this dingy restroom. Pavel’s _gone_. For now, no one is watching them.

No one else has to know.

“You.” Sidney takes a deep breath, his chest rising and falling under Zhenya’s hands. “This, here, you. You shouldn’t.” He holds Zhenya’s gaze, eyes so wide and trusting, and it’s almost impossible for Zhenya to stop himself from leaning in and kissing him. “I’m a mess.”

Zhenya shrugs. “Me too.” He lifts one hand and pushes it through Sidney’s hair, smoothing back misplaced strands. “Someone every day tell me what I’m should do, can do, can’t do. Don’t you do, too.”

“You’re going to get hurt, like this.”

“By who? You?” Evegni rests his hand against Sidney’s face, thumb running lightly over his cheekbone.

Sidney closes his eyes and leans into Zhenya’s hand. “Not on purpose.” Zhenya stops just short of running his thumb over Sidney’s lips as he talks. “But I worry.”

“I’m worry lots of things,” Zhenya says. “Worry about Moscow, worry someone learn too much about me. Worry your people think I’m no good anymore. But never once worry you hurt me. Never _once_.”

Sidney sways forward and presses his forehead to Zhenya’s shoulder. “They still want more from me,” he admits. “Ivanov wasn’t enough, I need to deliver more. This is never going to be over. This is never going to be safe.”

“You think I want safe?” Zhenya says against Sidney’s hair. “You think expect safe? I want safe, I never would go to diner first day to meet you. I go back to work, ignore we ever meet. Safe? Not interested.” Zhenya presses his face to the top of Sidney’s head for a long moment before stepping away. “They want more? Fine. I give them more, teach them who they push around.”

“Zhenya, no.”

“ _Yes_. I know what they do to Pavel, I know what they do to any of us. Nothing _safe_ here, Sidney, even without you. Ivanov not enough? _Fine_. Then I give you _better_ than Ivanov.” Zhenya brushes his hands over Sidney’s suit jacket and down his sleeves, smoothing out wrinkles. “I give you better, you see. Then someday, maybe, we talk about more than Soviet secrets.”

Sidney catches Zhenya’s hands in his before he can pull away and slowly laces their fingers together. He looks so serious, so concerned, and Zhenya is utterly charmed by it. “You’re playing with fire, you have to know that.”

“Can’t stop me, Sidney.”

Sidney shakes his head. “I won’t. Just.” He sighs and squeezes Zhenya’s hands. “Don’t go somewhere that I can’t get you back from.”

Zhenya breathes out, slow and even. “Promise. My job is easy one. Give me few weeks, I get better than Ivanov. I get you enough to shut everyone up.”

There’s so much more he wants to say, but he can’t. He doesn’t have the words in English, and he’s not going to start something he can’t finish, not here. “Your food probably up,” he says instead. “You should go. Look better now.” He pats Sidney’s chest, then turns away to move the trash bin back. “I’m go now, I find you soon when I have something.”

Before he can change his mind, Zhenya pulls the door open and stalks out, leaving Sidney behind.

If he wants to bring Sidney something better than the Ivanov intel, he has to get started now.

 

*

 

It takes four long weeks of eavesdropping and stealing files and sweet-talking Kseniya for keys to ciphers he didn’t already have, but Zhenya’s finally collected information even better than the Ivanov intel.

Zhenya and Sidney haven’t spoken since that day in the diner’s restroom and it makes Zhenya feel like he’s missing part of himself. He didn’t realize how much he’d built his life around seeing Sidney, but now, he feels the longing deep down in his bones.

He needs to get back to Sidney.

Zhenya spreads everything out on his desk and stares at it long into the night, piecing together the information until it’s just right. It’s almost entirely in Russian, so he hopes Sidney’s ready for a crash course in translation.

It’s not until Zhenya’s in his car, parking the usual three blocks away from Sidney’s house, that he realizes just how late it is. The roads are empty and an eerie fog clouds the streetlamps. Zhenya shoves his hands deeper into his pockets and hurries down the sidewalk.

Showing up at Sidney’s this late isn’t the best idea he’s ever had and he knows it, so he’s cautious whenever he knocks on the door. It’s a long while before he hears Sidney on the other side, locking and unlocking the deadbolt. “Is just me,” Zhenya says, loudly enough for Sidney to hear through the closed door. He pulls his hands from his pockets and raises them up. He doubts that Sidney’s going to answer the door after midnight without being armed, so he makes sure that Sidney knows it’s safe. “Just me, no one else.”

The rest of the locks are undone in a hurry and Sidney opens the door just enough for Zhenya to slide in. “Get in here,” he whispers harshly.

Zhenya’s halfway out of his jacket when he finally _notices_ Sidney, and he’s an absolute vision, hair wrecked, clad only in a white undershirt and sleep pants as he waits for Zhenya to take off his shoes. He has a hard time concentrating when Sidney is just _there_ like that, completely unaware of what he looks like. “Sorry I’m wake,” Zhenya says, toeing out of his shoes. “Wouldn’t, if not important.”

Sidney sighs. “It’s fine. I’d been expecting you to show up like this.”

“Keep you on toes,” Zhenya says with a smile. “Come, sit down, have news for you.”

They sit on the sofa, and Zhenya tries hard to stay still, but he’s so restless. He feels high-strung, more nervous than ever, because this is information that could destroy the both of them. Zhenya wonders if he’s making the right decision, but then he thinks about Sidney in the diner’s restroom, disheveled and haunted, and he knows he has to do it.

“Are you going to tell me?” Sidney’s hand lands on his shoulder and brings him back to earth. His fingers dig in, and Zhenya can feel the tremble running through his body as Sidney holds on.

He watches Sidney for a long moment, daring himself to memorize the chaotic mess of Sidney’s hair, his crooked smile, his wide open eyes.

He might not ever have this again.

Zhenya reaches into his coat and pulls out a rolled-up folder, followed by a canister of film. “We go through papers, but you make sure you develop this.” He extends the canister to Sidney with shaking hands. “Is photographs of entire file on Tatiana Stepanova. You know as Tara Clemson, yes?”

Sidney doesn’t take the canister and instead stares at Zhenya, mouth slack. Zhenya waits for a response but gets nothing, so he drops the folder onto the table and presses the canister into Sidney’s hands. “Whole operation, right here. You use this, you wipe out years of Soviet work. Take it.”

With a nod, Sidney closes his hand around the canister of film and takes it away. “We’ve been trying to take apart that ring for years. Will they suspect you?” He stares at the film for a long time before setting it down on the table.

Zhenya pulls his lower lip between his teeth, thinking over his answer. “Maybe, hard to tell. Is not my file to work, but.” He shrugs. “If they find out, I have to go, before they…” His words trail off, and he presses his index finger to his temple and twitches his thumb. _Before they kill me_ , Zhenya doesn’t say.

“They won’t,” Sidney says, and he reaches out to grip Zhenya’s knee, stopping his twitching. His fingers curl in tight, and Zhenya sucks in a breath and holds it. “You come to me, if you think they know. I’ll make sure you’re protected.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Sidney,” Zhenya says, eyes trained on Sidney’s fingers curled around his knee. “If they find out, nothing you can do. You see what they do to Pavel, for me, is even worse.”

“You underestimate me. I thought you knew better by now.”

“You underestimate _Moscow_ ,” Zhenya snaps, harsher than he intends to, and he looks away, tilting his head up to stare at Sidney’s ceiling. “This -- this bigger than what I’m give before, you know that, this whole point of information. This not travel plans or blueprints or bank account. This not Ivanov’s safehouse. This is _it_ , this bring down years of work, if you act. And if they know I’m thief...”

A shudder rolls through Zhenya’s body, and once it starts, he can’t stop. Zhenya thought he knew fear whenever Pavel threatened to expose him, but this is a thousand times worse. He was never afraid of the Americans, never afraid of Sidney, but now he’s gone completely off the path that Moscow has charted for him, and he’s just waiting for an assassin’s bullet to come hurtling through Sidney’s front windows to put an end to him. “If they know, I have to run.”

Sidney lets out a huff and then reaches up, fingers closing tight around Zhenya’s jaw, turning his head back to face him. “Zhenya,” he says, then stops. His thumb runs the curve of Zhenya’s jaw, feather light. “ _Zhenya_.” Sidney’s voice is barely above a whisper. “It’s alright. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You have to believe me.” He leans in as he speaks and their faces are dangerously close together. “Just trust me.”

“I do, Sidney.” And he does, that’s the worst of it, Zhenya trusts Sidney so much that he’s risking everything for him. He’s just committed treason for Sidney, to keep Sidney’s job safe, to keep Sidney with him.

He doesn’t want Sidney to work with anyone else. Zhenya knows how Sidney takes his coffee, he knows that Sidney always reads the sports section first and saves international news for last. He knows that the long, thin scar under Sidney’s chin is from getting high-sticked on a pond back in Canada, he knows that Sidney is hopeless with a bow tie, that he doesn’t like his food to touch, and that he never talks to his mother on days where he has to go out and meet with any of his contacts.

Zhenya doesn’t want anyone else to know, to share those moments, to take _his_ Sidney.

He takes a breath, then exhales slowly; with that he closes the gap between them and presses their foreheads together. Sidney’s hand slides to cup the back of Zhenya’s neck, holding him close. “I trust you with my life,” Zhenya whispers. He does, in more ways than one, because he knows that as soon as Moscow learns what information the Americans have, he is as good as dead. And if he’s a dead man walking, if there’s an expiration date on his existence, he’s not going to go out without taking what he’s wanted for so long.

Before he can overthink things, Zhenya leans forward and presses his lips to Sidney’s, who goes very still. Despite everything, despite all the moments where he’s allowed Sidney even the tiniest of glimpses of what’s in his heart, Zhenya’s still terrified that he’s misjudged everything. Just when he’s getting ready to pull away and offer a whole line of excuses for his behavior, Sidney’s lips part beneath his. Then it’s Zhenya’s turn to go still, because for as much as he’d dared to hope that he was reading things correctly, he didn’t ever anticipate Sidney actually being responsive. He _is_ , though, because he’s curling his fingers into Zhenya’s hair and pushing into the kiss.

Zhenya wants nothing more than this, the simple pleasure of Sidney’s lips yielding under his. The quiet noises that Sidney makes are enough to make him shiver, and he lets out a groan of his own when Sidney straddles his lap without breaking the kiss. Sidney’s a solid, heavy weight on top of him, and Zhenya can’t resist running his hands down Sidney’s back, feeling the shift of muscles as he gets comfortable.

When Zhenya’s hands come to rest firmly on Sidney’s ass, Sidney makes a strangled noise that makes Zhenya pull away from the kiss and laugh brightly. “I’m never think,” he says between kisses. “Never, that you…” He shakes his head and lets his words trail off. He doesn’t want to talk about it, he just wants to keep kissing Sidney.

Sidney’s hands spread across Zhenya’s chest. “I thought I was being plenty obvious for a while. But maybe not enough.” A smile tugs at the corner of his lips before he darts back in to kiss Zhenya.

Zhenya doesn’t care, he _doesn’t_. It doesn’t matter how many signs he missed from Sidney, what _matters_ is that this is real. What matters is that Sidney’s hands are tugging at his shirt, Sidney’s tongue is pressing into his mouth, and he isn’t imagining it. This isn’t something Zhenya’s dreamed up when he’s in bed, arching under the covers and pushing up into his own hand.

This is _real_.

“Not matter now,” Zhenya says against Sidney’s lips. It’s hard to do anything other than kiss him, to drink him in, after denying it for so long. “Not matter.” He sinks one hand into Sidney’s hair and lets the other skate up his back, up underneath his thin undershirt. “Only matter that--”

 _Bang_!

Before Zhenya has even fully processed the sound, Sidney’s rolled off of him and pushed him face down against the sofa. “Stay down,” Sidney whispers. His hand lingers for a moment between Zhenya’s shoulder blades before he slides off, crawling across the floor to the window.

There’s nothing there, though, just an old car struggling to get back in gear at the stop sign. “All clear.” Sidney drops down to sit, slumping against the wall. “Just a car. I thought…” He trails off and tips his head back, looking up at the ceiling.

“Good reflexes,” Zhenya says. His heart is pounding madly in his chest; it might have just been a car backfiring, but it could have easily been someone who decided that Zhenya had been given more than enough rope to hang himself with.

Slowly, Zhenya pushes himself up off of the couch. “Not think you that fast,” he says as he extends his hand to Sidney to help him back up.

“I can be.” Sidney takes Zhenya’s hand and goes up easily, tipping up against Zhenya’s chest when he stands. “That was maybe too much excitement for one night.”

“Think maybe should go.” Zhenya doesn’t let go of Sidney, though.

“You don’t have to,” Sidney protests.

“Sidney. That could be car, make noise, or that could be someone watching me. Or you.” Zhenya squeezes Sidney’s hand, then starts to lead him towards the door.

Sidney resists being moved at first, but the more Zhenya pulls, the more he stumbles along. “You’re not going because of…” Sidney gestures at himself and shrugs helplessly. “Are you?”

Zhenya makes a wounded noise. In one swift movement, he twists and pushes Sidney up against the door. “You have no idea.” Zhenya’s hands pin Sidney’s wrists to the door as he leans in to map the long expanse of Sidney’s neck with his lips. “First day I’m see you, all I want is this.”

Sidney lets out a whine and twitches up against Zhenya. “Really?”

“You have no idea what I’m want do to you.” Zhenya brings one hand up to tilt Sidney’s face towards him, then kisses him, hard and fierce. “You believe?”

Sidney’s flushed red and breathless after the kiss. “Yeah.”

“Good.” Zhenya cups Sidney’s face in his hand, then lets his fingers slide down to brush across Sidney’s lips. “I go home. See you for breakfast, like usual?”

“You’re just going to leave me like this?” Sidney sounds petulant; his brows furrow and a deep frown tugs at his lips.

Zhenya nudges Sidney away from the door and grins. “Yes,” he says as he steps back into his shoes. “ Think so. Give you something to think about, then.”

Sidney groans, but he unlocks the door anyway. “Go, then. I need to take a very long shower, no thanks to you.”

Before Sidney opens the door, Zhenya leans back in for one brief kiss. “Go, you tell me all about next time.”

Sidney laughs and shoves Zhenya out of the doorway. “Good night, Zhenya.”

“ _Spokushki_ , Sidney.” Zhenya waves and fixes Sidney with a fond smile before taking off, hands jammed in his pockets as he begins the long walk back to his car.

 

*

 

Zhenya can’t help himself. When he sees Sidney walk into the diner, he can’t hold back a grin. At the counter, though, Sidney seems to be having the same problem. When Sidney laughs while giving Alma his order, she looks so pleased that she just might cry.

“Morning,” Sidney says as he slides into the booth.

Zhenya just smiles and hums happily as he clutches his mug between his hands. “Think you give Alma nice surprise,” he says, gesturing over at their still grinning waitress.

“I guess I’m just having a good day.” Sidney picks up his own coffee and takes a long drink. Under the table, he reaches out and nudges Zhenya with his foot. Zhenya knows that this is how things need to be, casual touches obscured from view of everyone else, but if this is all he can have -- Sidney’s foot hooked around his ankle under the table -- he’ll take it and be pleased with it.

They stare at each other for a while before Zhenya breaks the silence. “I’m not have anything new for you. Might be long time before I find anything new, unless you need.” With Pavel’s replacement being held up by bureaucratic red tape, there hasn’t been anyone to pass along state sanctioned secrets, not that Zhenya’s ever had any trouble gathering secrets of his own.

“That’s fine.” Under the table, Sidney’s foot nudges its way up Zhenya’s calf. “What you gave me before, the other day, that will keep us busy for a while.” He flashes a sly smile and Zhenya ducks his head to hide his own grin.

“That could mean lots of things,” Zhenya points out. “Which you mean?”

“Come home with me tonight,” Sidney says bluntly. “That’s what I mean.”

Zhenya laughs loud enough to draw Alma’s attention, who looks more pleased than annoyed. “Was hoping that what you mean.” Not that Zhenya minds talking about work, but he’d much rather put Sidney’s mouth to other uses, if he has any say in things.

“Is that a yes?”

“Offend you even need to ask, Agent. What you think?”

Sidney taps his fingers against his mug. “I think you should come over for dinner, and then stay, afterwards.”

Like a date, Zhenya thinks. A fucking date, and he has never been happier. “Alright, dinner, then. Eight?”

“Seven-fifteen,” Sidney counters. “It won’t be a long dinner, I’m sure you’ll have a late night.”

The corners of Zhenya’s lips turn up into a smile. “Is what I’m hope for.”

They finish their breakfast in comfortable silence, Sidney’s plate shoved in the middle of the table so they can share from it, and when they’re done, they both sit and stare at each other before Sidney breaks the silence. “I should go to work.”

“Americans, always on _time,_ ” Zhenya teases. Still, he takes one last sip of his coffee and stands up. “I understand, you very important. Job to do, country to save.”

“I don’t know about that.” Sidney shrugs. “I do my best, that’s all.”

Zhenya slides into his coat. “You ever think doing your best bring you someone like me? Is big project.”

Sidney beams up at Zhenya. “Never in a million years.” He reaches up and impulsively straightens Zhenya’s scarf, hands lingering against Zhenya’s chest just a moment too long to be proper. “But I don’t mind big projects.”

Zhenya sways towards Sidney. “Good.” He rests his hand on Sidney’s shoulder and nudges him towards the door. “We make it work, then. Seven-thirty.”

“Seven-fifteen,” Sidney corrects.

“Just checking.” Zhenya slides his hand to the small of Sidney’s back as they reach the door. “Seven-fifteen.”

 

*

 

When Sidney said he wanted Zhenya to come over for dinner, he wasn’t lying. “You really mean dinner,” Zhenya says as he slips out of his shoes and leaves them in place on the mat.

“I did.” Sidney shuffles next to the dining room table, which is covered in a crisp white tablecloth. Low candles sit in the middle of the table, and Zhenya can smell dinner cooking on the stove. “What did you think?” Sidney pulls his lower lip between his teeth and shifts his weight from foot to foot.

“Doesn’t matter, I like.” Zhenya grins and crosses the room to Sidney. “Hi.” He stops just out of arm’s reach of Sidney and grins.

Sidney’s smile is small and shy. “Hi.” He takes a small step forward. “You know I’m going to actually make us eat dinner, right?”

“I know.” Zhenya closes the gap between them and twists his fingers in the hem of Sidney’s sweater. “Is okay. I’m wait.”

“But.” Sidney rises up on his toes and lets one hand press along Zhenya’s jaw. “Not for that long,” he says against Zhenya’s lips.

“Good.” He kisses Sidney softly, just the barest press of their lips together.

“Dinner,” Sidney murmurs, even as he works himself into Zhenya’s space instead of pulling away.

Zhenya plants his free hand on Sidney’s waist to keep him close. “I know.” He kisses him again, and this time Sidney opens up against him, lips parting before he pulls away, almost reluctantly 

“ _Dinner_ , Zhenya.”

“ _Fine_.” Zhenya grins before letting go of Sidney. He doesn’t _want_ to, but whatever Sidney’s cooking smells delicious. “Can I help?”

“No.” Sidney grabs Zhenya by the arms and shoves him towards a chair. “Sit. You’re just going to distract me.”

“Fine.” Zhenya drops down into the chair and folds his arms over his chest. “I sit, stay out of way.” He pouts, but it’s impossible to hold the expression, not with the way that Sidney’s looking at him, so steady and serious. “ _Go_.” Zhenya flaps his hand at the kitchen. “Go, before I change mind.”

Sidney presses a kiss to Zhenya’s temple. “I’ll make it worth it, I promise.”

 

*

 

Sidney _does_ , that’s the thing. Dinner’s simple, just pasta and a salad, but Zhenya doesn’t care. They could be eating sandwiches and cold cuts for all he cares. What’s important is the way that he sits tilted into Sidney at the table, their knees touching, Sidney’s socked foot sliding up Zhenya’s calf as they eat.

“So,” Zhenya says, folding his napkin and leaving it on the table. “You have rules about this, too?”

“About what?” Sidney sets his silverware down and pushes his plate back.

“Can we just leave here?” He gestures at the plates on the table. “You need clean first? Or…” Zhenya nods his head towards the hallway.

“Oh. _Oh._ ” Sidney looks at the table and its spread of dirty dishes and empty wine glasses. “There’s no food out,” he says decisively, “so I think this can wait.”

“Good.” Zhenya stands up. “We leave it, then.”

“You really know how to romance a guy,” Sidney says. He’s aiming for petulant, but with the way one corner of his mouth twitches, Zhenya knows it’s all a front.

“Please.” Zhenya rolls his eyes. “You have candles and tablecloth. You take care of romance, I’m take care of rest.” He stands up and extends his hand to Sidney. “ Gonna make me work for it?”

Sidney looks at Zhenya’s hand, like he’s _actually_ considering it. “Not this time,” he says before placing his hand in Zhenya’s, allowing himself to be pulled up. “Maybe later.”

Zhenya tugs Sidney so that they fall together. “Good. I’m not want wait, not anymore.” He tugs at Sidney’s sweater, rucking the back of it up so he can start to untuck Sidney’s button-down. “Romance your job. This, this mine.” He ducks in and mouths along the line of Sidney’s jaw, teeth grazing against skin as he works his way down Sidney’s neck. Zhenya can feel Sidney’s pulse jump; he wants so badly to mark him then, to leave some sign that he was there, that Sidney is _his_. He doesn’t, though, and instead starts pushing Sidney backwards towards the bedroom.

Sidney’s bedroom is much like the rest of his home: sparsely decorated, utilitarian, and so orderly that it might as well be a museum. Zhenya wants to mess it up, to make it look a little less perfect, the same way that he wants to take Sidney apart until neither of them can even use words anymore.

“It’s been a while,” Sidney says as Zhenya tries to pull his sweater off. “I’m sorry if--”

“You say sorry?” Zhenya yanks at the sweater, not minding when it gets stuck around Sidney’s upraised arms. At least it gets him to be quiet for a minute. “Don’t care if months, or years, or _forever_.” Under the sweater, Sidney makes a muffled noise before Zhenya pulls it off the rest of the way and casts it aside. “I’m take care.”

Zhenya pushes at Sidney until his knees his the bed and his legs fold, making a quiet noise as he goes. “Will you?” Sidney asks as he leans back on his elbows, legs spread.

Zhenya runs his tongue over his teeth, then exhales. This is enough, Sidney sprawled invitingly in front of him. This is _more_ than he thought he’d ever get and it’s overwhelming, enough to root him in place until Sidney calls out his name.

“Zhenya?” Sidney shifts on the bed, looking up with concern written all across his face.

Zhenya’s not one to think much about _love_ , but being with Sidney like this makes him want to say stupid things, things that will get him in trouble someday. “You just…” He shakes his head and lets his words trail off. His English isn’t going to help him tell Sidney how he feels, so he just takes Sidney’s face in his hands and says it all with his kiss instead, long and deep. “ Everything,” he says against Sidney’s lips as he starts to work on undoing Sidney’s buttons.

“Yeah?” Sidney reaches forward, hands still tentative as he pulls at Zhenya’s shirt.

“ _Da_.” Zhenya shoves Sidney’s shirt down over his shoulders. “You give me this,” he says, dropping to his knees between Sidney’s spread legs. “Is everything.” Zhenya runs his hands up Sidney’s thighs, one sliding up the rest of the way to press at the hard line of Sidney’s dick through his trousers.

Sidney hisses and pushes up into Zhenya’s hand. “You like?” Zhenya asks, pulling his touch away until Sidney whines.

“Don’t stop,” Sidney grits out. Zhenya grins wickedly and fumbles open Sidney’s belt. “Come on,” he says as he lifts his hips.

With Sidney finally helping out, it doesn’t take long to get him undressed. “I don’t think this is fair,” he complains as Zhenya pushes him down on the bed, one big hand planted firmly on Sidney’s chest.

It isn’t, of course; the closest Zhenya’s come to disrobing is rolling up his sleeves. “Fair?” He sits back against Sidney’s thighs and looks at him for a long moment. “Wait minute, you not care about fair.” Sidney begins to protest but almost immediately falls silent whenever Zhenya wraps one hand around the base of his cock.

Zhenya leans down, holding eye contact with Sidney the whole time as he goes. A smirk twitches at the corner of his lips as he mouths at the head of his cock. “Christ,” Sidney spits out, fingers twitching in the sheets.

Zhenya doesn’t give him time to think about anything else as he goes to work, lips stretched wide over Sidney’s cock. “Fucking-- Christ, _Jesus_ , don’t stop.”

He almost wants to stop just to be contrary, just to see what he can get Sidney to do to make him keep going, but the feel of Sidney hard and needy underneath him is too much. He pulls back just enough to get another whine from Sidney, then works him back in deep.  It’s everything he’s ever wanted since first seeing Sidney in the market: Sidney, writhing and panting beneath him, far past coherent thought as he begs Zhenya to _keep going, keep going, almost there, fuck, I’m gonna--_

Sidney shoves at Zhenya’s shoulder, but Zhenya just flicks his gaze up at Sidney and hums happily instead of pulling off. “Oh, fuck, _fuck_ ,” Sidney chants, hips twitching up against Zhenya’s grip as he comes.

Zhenya pulls off when he’s worked Sidney through it and licks his lips reflexively. Sidney makes a noise like someone just punched him.  “You, oh, god.” He reaches down, getting a handful of Zhenya’s hair, and tugs gently. “Come up here, come up here right now.”

Zhenya doesn’t have to be told twice, not anymore.

 

*

 

Slowly, they carve out space in their lives to make up for lost time. It’s not difficult, considering how much time they’d already been spending together. But for as much as Zhenya treasures his morning coffee with Sidney, he treasures this more.

The diner is nice, the diner is always going to be special, but now that Zhenya knows the unique pleasure of feeling Sidney shake apart beneath him, he’s a little biased towards spending all of his spare time in Sidney’s bedroom, instead.

Zhenya works a hand between them, fingers curling around Sidney’s cock, sliding along his length in time with his thrusts. Beneath him, Sidney presses up and Zhenya can’t help it, can’t help himself. He wants to take Sidney apart, piece by piece and make him _his_. He wants to see him undone in the best way possible.

“Zhenya,” Sidney whispers, voice rough. His eyes are closed, head thrown back, and Zhenya knows he’s never seen anyone more beautiful. “Please, I need-- _fuck_ , Zhenya.” He’s lost, they’re both so lost.

Zhenya obliges, and he stops being careful. His free hand clenches tight on Sidney’s hip as he fucks into him hard, and it doesn’t take much longer for Sidney to come, back arched, nonsense falling from his lips. He pauses, muscles taut as he holds himself in place, but Sidney grabs at his hips. “Don’t stop,” he rasps. “Want to feel you.” Zhenya makes a quiet noise, low in the back of his throat as he works Sidney through it, then chases his own release. He finds it quickly, sped up by Sidney still shaking apart underneath him, and he barely recognizes the noises that he makes as he comes.

Slowly, he comes around, comes back to himself. Head bowed, mouth pressed against Sidney’s neck, Zhenya whispers against his hot skin. English isn’t good enough, not meaningful enough, and Zhenya returns to Russian. “ _So beautiful_ ,” he murmurs, “ _and mine, all mine, want to keep you.”_

Sidney turns his head and presses a kiss to Zhenya’s hair. “ _Yes_ ,” he says, and Zhenya freezes. “ _All yours, as long as you want me_.” Sidney’s accent isn’t the best, he would never pass for a native speaker, but his grammar is flawless. Zhenya has to force himself upright, pressing his palms flat against the mattress to hold himself over Sidney. He stares down at him, incredulous and the tiniest bit afraid. It’s another broken secret between them, and Zhenya wonders what else he’s muttered in Russian in front of Sidney, unaware that he was being understood. If he weren’t so happy maybe he’d care, but right now, he cares about nothing else but Sidney. Sidney’s body pressed against his, Sidney’s hands on him.

A bewildered smile spreads across Zhenya’s face as he decides to ignore the worry that he’s blown his own cover. “ _Always going to want you, Sidney,_ ” he says, then repeats himself in English, just for good measure. “Always, even if you not tell me you know Russian.”

Sidney grins. “Did you forget what I do for a living?”

Zhenya lifts one hand, presses it to Sidney’s cheek, pushing his face away, into the mattress, but smiles all the while. “Always make me translate for you, how I’m know different?”

Sidney’s cheeks flush, and he keeps his face pressed against the mattress. “It was an excuse to spend more time with you,” he mutters, then reaches up to push lightly at Zhenya’s shoulder. “Now move, you’re heavy.”

 

*

 

Sidney and Zhenya set out some rules around what they’re doing. They never touch in public. They never go to Zhenya’s apartment. Both of them sweep for bugs more frequently than usual. Zhenya’s route to Sidney’s house involves doubling back three times, parking no less than three blocks away, then waking the rest of the way, weaving between side streets and alleys.

Zhenya’s not supposed to spend the night, either, but more often than not, he wakes up to the soft morning light filtering through Sidney’s curtains.

“ _Dobroe utro_ , Sidney,” Zhenya says, though he makes no move to actually get out of bed.

Sidney snuggles closer, tucking his face into the crook of Zhenya’s neck. “ _Dobroe utro_ , Zhenya,” he mumbles. He slings one leg over Zhenya’s, squirming until he’s nearly on top of Zhenya.

“You’re heavy,” Zhenya complains.

Sidney’s teeth graze against Zhenya’s neck. “You like it.”

“Well.” Zhenya rolls his hips up, his half-hard cock pressing against Sidney’s thigh. “I like _this_.”

The light brush of Sidney’s teeth turns into a bite, right over Zhenya’s collarbone. “I know.” Sidney shifts his weight to his legs and starts to inch backwards, lips trailing a path down Zhenya’s body as he goes.

“You have work?” Zhenya asks weakly.

Sidney’s mouth closes over the rise of Zhenya’s hip, and he sucks just hard enough to leave a mark whenever he pulls away. “Don’t you?”

A quiet, choked noise escapes from Zhenya. “No one at office until ten, maybe eleven,” he concedes.

“Maybe I had important work to do in the field,” Sidney says, and he spreads Zhenya’s legs easily, his strong hands pushing his thighs out. “No one’s going to say anything.” He ducks in and mouths a line up Zhenya’s thigh, stopping just short of where Zhenya _really_ wants him to be.

“You _worst_ , Sidney,” Zhenya chides.

“You think?” Sidney arches one eyebrow, then leans in to lick a long stripe up Zhenya’s dick. “I don’t hear you complaining.” Zhenya doesn’t even have time to protest before Sidney takes him in his mouth.

“F-fuck,” Zhenya stutters. His fingers twist tight in the sheets as he forces his hips to stay still.

Sidney pulls off with a pop. “Relax,” he says, swatting at Zhenya’s hands. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

Zhenya lets one hand settle at the back of Sidney’s neck as he relaxes. He still tries to stay still, but he doesn’t force it anymore, and his hips jerk up in short strokes as Sidney swallows him down.

He wonders sometimes where Sidney learned to do this, how he figured out how to take another man apart with nothing more than his tongue and his beautiful mouth. Zhenya knows where _he_ learned, on his knees in bathrooms and supply closets and in the backs of bars where no one asked too many questions, and he hopes it was _nicer_ for Sidney.

“I’m not going to--” he starts, fingers curling in Sidney’s hair. “Sidney, you--” He slides his free hand along Sidney’s jaw, brushes against Sidney’s lips stretched wide, red and shiny with spit. “Your fucking _mouth_.”

Sidney pulls up and mouths at the head of Zhenya’s cock. “Shut up and come for me,” he says when he pulls off. Zhenya can’t even bother to look offended, because when Sidney goes back down, he lets his free hand stray between Zhenya’s legs, and when one spit-slick finger slides over his hole, he’s _done_ , coming with a strangled shout before he even knows what hit him.

He’s still barely aware of what’s happening whenever Sidney kneels over him and takes his cock in hand. “Yes, come on, come _on_ , Sidney,” he says hoarsely as he reaches down to press one hand against Sidney’s thigh. “Want see, see you.”

Sidney’s beautiful, he’s _amazing_ , his hand working in short, fast strokes. He’s got his lower lip pulled between his teeth and he’s making tiny panting noises as he fucks up into his hand. “I can’t, I’m not, _fuck_ , Zhenya,” he babbles.

“For me, come on.” Zhenya uses the last of his energy to push himself up on one elbow, giving him enough reach to cover Sidney’s hands with his own, and that’s enough for Sidney, who shoots hard against Zhenya’s chest, cursing up a storm the whole time.

Sidney tips forward and buries his face against Zhenya’s neck. “So good, Sidney,” Evgeni whispers. “Always so good.” He lifts one hand and lets it settle on Sidney’s back, fingers stroking softly down his spine. “But you sure you need go work?”

“Huh?” Sidney doesn’t even raise his head up; instead, he burrows closer to Zhenya.

“Maybe you call off sick, maybe we stay in bed all day,” Zhenya suggests. “Maybe we do that again.”

“You’re going to break me, we do that again,” Sidney mumbles. “I need to shower.”

“Five more minutes.” Zhenya tightens his arm around Sidney’s waist. “Just five more minutes, I’m stay here with you.”

It’s all borrowed time. Five minutes is more time than Zhenya has any right to.

Sidney makes a contented noise and presses a kiss to Zhenya’s shoulder. “Five more minutes, then.”

 

*

 

Every other Saturday, no matter what else is going on, Sidney and Zhenya go back to Roosevelt Island. They’ve been doing it for months now: Sidney packs a lunch and they drive in, Zhenya’s hand resting high on Sidney’s leg as they wind their way through the city.

“Do you think things could ever be different for us?” Sidney asks, leaning against Zhenya after they’ve finished their sandwiches.

“Different how?”

“No more secrets,” Sidney answers. His fingers trace circles against Zhenya’s thigh, and that alone is enough to make Zhenya shift uncomfortably against the fallen tree they’re sitting on. “No more hiding.”

It’s impossible, and they both know it. Every day that goes by that he hides the truth of his job from Sidney kills him a little more, but they’re in too deep for Zhenya to change his story now.

Zhenya presses a kiss to Sidney’s hair. “You’d lose job,” he says. He doesn’t add that Moscow would probably send someone to kill the both of them. “We both would. No more Soviet secrets for your FBI.”

“I don’t know that I’d care so much about that,” Sidney says quietly. “I’d have you.”

“Is worth it, lose job, for me?”

Sidney’s hand stills; his fingers clench tight around Zhenya’s knee. “For you?” He turns in towards Zhenya and kisses his jaw. “I would give up everything.”

 

*

 

 _Come see me_ , reads the note on Zhenya’s desk. Kolya’s handwriting is instantly recognizable, the messy scrawl of Cyrillic letters taking up most of the page.

“What?” Zhenya asks as soon as he’s closed the door to Kolya’s office.

“Tell me what you know about Tatiana,” Kolya says bluntly.

Zhenya frowns. “She lives in Arlington with Leo. Two kids, very charming. Cute family. Isn’t Ilya her main contact here?”

“Ilya is useless. I wanted to know if you’d heard anything.” Kolya paces back and forth behind his desk. “Tatiana and Leo were arrested this week. She missed her regular meet with Ilya. The FBI got them. Masha leaned on her American contacts and it looks like Leo’s ready to crack.”

Zhenya slumps down into a chair. “Who can Leo give up to them?”

“All of us.” Kolya kicks at the corner of his desk. “Leo’s going to crack, and he’s going to give up all of us.”

“Fuck me.” Zhenya presses his hands against his face, blocking out the office, blocking out Kolya’s dark prediction.

It’s going to be okay. It has to be okay. If there was going to be trouble, Sidney would have warned him to stay away, like he did with Ivanov.

Everything is going to be fine.

 

*

 

Zhenya is startled awake by his phone ringing. He’s not sure how long it’s been going off, but the person on the other end isn’t going away, no matter how long he ignores it. He groans, rolling over and reaching for the phone.

An all too familiar Russian voice greets him as soon as he’s picked up. “Good morning, Comrade Malkin.” Zhenya’s blood runs cold at the voice on the other end of the line. He sits straight up in bed, blankets pooling around his waist, and he starts planning his exit strategy.

“Good morning, General,” he responds, doing his best to sound calm. The General doesn't call people just to chat, so Zhenya knows nothing good is going to come of this. As quietly as possible, he slips out of bed and starts wandering the room, stretching the cord of the phone to the limit as he gathers clothes to put on. “How can I help you?”

“I’ve heard some distressing news about our operations at the embassy. Have you heard what happened to Tatiana’s family?” In the space between the General’s words, Zhenya hears the familiar clicking, scratching sounds that remind him that this call is being monitored.

Of _course_ he’s heard. What happened to Tatiana and her team keeps him up at night. What happened to Tatiana’s team is also entirely his fault. “Yes, sir, I have,” he says. “A terrible tragedy that she wasn’t able to complete her work.” Zhenya wedges the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he tries to wriggle into a pair of pants.

“Tragic, indeed.” The General makes a soft noise on the other end of the line. “Would you believe, though, that we are almost certain that we’ve identified the rat who gave up Tatiana’s information to the Americans?”

Zhenya stops, one leg in the pants. He very slowly lowers himself to a crouch, ducking below the level of the window. “Really? That’s excellent news, General.” He gropes under his bed for his shoes and tries not to let the effort show in his voice.

“Certainly,” the General agrees. “Normally, we would eliminate this rat with haste, but it appears that the rat still has some friends back in Moscow. Comrade Ovechkin was very convincing, so we agreed to give him one last chance.”

Nothing good comes from the KGB offering _one last chance_ , Zhenya knows full well. His mouth is dry and he can barely force any words out. “That’s very generous of you, General,” he manages to say.

“So. We have decided if the rat eliminates his American agent today, we’ll let him live. If not, we will crush the both of them.” The General speaks so casually, like he hasn’t just blown up Zhenya’s entire world. Zhenya would endure whatever the KGB wanted to inflict on him, so long as they left Sidney out of it. That option is gone now.

Zhenya is quiet for far too long, trying to control his breathing. “Do you understand, Evgeni? Do you understand what we do to people like that?”

“Yes,” Zhenya says weakly.

“If it were you -- and of course, I would never suggest such a thing, but let’s pretend, shall we? If it were you, you would do everything I ask of you. Would you not?” The General sounds so cheerful, so casual, and all Zhenya wants to do is throw up.

“Yes, General,” he says.

“Good. Enjoy your day, Comrade.” The General hangs up, and Zhenya lets the phone drop from his nerveless fingers.

 

*

 

Time moves in a blur for Zhenya. He’s on automatic pilot as he finishes getting dressed, grabs his go bag, straps on his gun and does a once-over of his apartment for anything he can’t live without. There’s nothing, though; everything he has are just _possessions_ , nothing worth salvaging. Nothing worth dying for.

Sidney. _Sidney_ is who Zhenya would be willing to die for. Not a dusty collection of books and ill-fitting sweaters. Just Sidney.

He thinks about torching the place, a last _fuck you_ to the KGB, but decides against it. There are too many innocent people in his building to justify it. He can’t help but think that the General would like that, would like to see Zhenya prove his worth and take out his entire building in a blaze of glory, and that helps him make his mind up.

Instead, he shoulders his bag, leaves his keys on the kitchen counter and heads to his car.

He’s never coming back here, no matter what happens next.

 

*

 

Zhenya’s had keys to Sidney’s place for months, but they’re gone now, bent and twisted on the side of the road. He tossed them out the window on his drive over, not wanting to risk getting caught with the keys if he’s intercepted before reaching Sidney. He knows the types of agents who are going to be sent after him, and he’s certain that they’d start connecting dots he doesn’t want connected.

Instead, he drives as fast as he can, weaving through the early morning rush of traffic to get to Sidney’s neighborhood. He ditches his car in a cul-de-sac, grabs his bag and runs down side streets. Zhenya knows that he runs the risk of attracting too much attention this way, but he’s never parked right in front of Sidney’s house before, and he’s not going to start now.

Besides, he’s not going to need that car anymore. The KGB gave it to him when he got to America and he doesn’t trust it anymore. He’ll find a new one, it doesn’t matter.

Sidney’s block is as quiet as it ever is, this time of the morning, and Zhenya is glad that there’s no one out to watch him sprinting down the street, heavy duffel slung over his shoulder.

When he gets to Sidney’s house, he knows there’s only one way in. Without his key, he simply drops his bag to the ground, takes a few steps back and slams his weight into the door. Once, twice, three times, and that’s enough to snap through the lock, the deadbolt and the chain that Sidney always secures. He kicks his bag inside the doorway and begins to storm through the house. Zhenya feels a pang of guilt for not observing Sidney’s very specific routines for visitors, but now isn't the time for the obsessive lock-checking, for the shoes at the correct corner of the mat. Everything has its right place, except for right now, with Sidney's door yawning open off its hinges and Zhenya storming through the house, his gun drawn.

"Sidney!" he shouts, bursting through doors and clearing rooms, one-by-one. “Sidney, where are you?” Zhenya pauses to listen, then hears the sink running in the bathroom, and begins to make his way back through the house. He makes a horrific amount of noise, intentionally tipping over furniture as he goes, and he doesn't care that the little bungalow looks like a war zone. If he has his way, Sidney's never going to see this place again.

Eventually the water shuts off, and Zhenya calls out for Sidney again. He stops in front of the bathroom door and raps on it with the butt of his gun. "Sidney, come out."

The door creaks open and there's Sidney, half dressed in his suit, tie knotted loosely in place, hair sticking up in every direction. Flecks of foamy toothpaste cling to the corners of his mouth. He looks so scattered, so imperfect that Zhenya wants to kiss him, wants to ruin him, because he might not ever get the chance again. His mouth is open as he looks at Zhenya, at the gun held by his side, then past him to the trail of destruction he's laid throughout the house. "What--?"

"They _know_ , Sidney," Zhenya says. "They know. So, I’m have to run. I go." He's so tense, so terrified. He's been trained for this moment, in a way, although the KGB trained him to outrun the Americans. They didn't train him to outrun their own agents, and Zhenya still doesn't know if that gives him an advantage or not.

Sidney scrubs his hands against his face, up into his hair. It's still early, and Zhenya knows that he doesn't fire on all cylinders until he's about three cups of coffee in, so he's not there yet. "What do you mean?"

"They know what I’m give you, they know it was me." It was their nightmare scenario, the one they both promised each other would never come to life, but here they are. "Tara Clemson, Tatiana. Whole operation is finished, your people shut them down. They track it back to me, to you. They _know_ , Sidney."

The news sobers Sidney. Zhenya has spent long enough with him that he can see the change the second it happens: the lengthening of his spine, the firm set of his lips, the steely look in his eyes. "A mole in the FBI?"

"Don't care. Mole, or maybe I’m make stupid mistake. Doesn't matter. I have to go." He gestures anxiously with his free hand, at the splintered doors and overturned furniture he left in his wake on the way to find Sidney. “You need to go, too.”

“Why me?” There's a note in his voice that makes Zhenya think that Sidney's just looking for confirmation of something he already knows. Sidney edges past Zhenya as he talks, leading them back towards the bedroom, where Zhenya knows that Sidney stores his own firearm.

Zhenya grunts in frustration. “Because they know about you. I tell them, what else I do? I had job here, not just assistant in office, you know? From very first day, Moscow know who you are.” While he’s suspected that Sidney’s long assumed that Zhenya’s not quite the innocent he pretends to be, he’s never outright admitted it until then. It hurts that now is when it comes out, when Zhenya doesn’t have the chance to fully explain, but Sidney deserves a chance to save himself. "Moscow wants you dead. You can't stay, Sidney." That’s not the whole truth, but if he tells it all to Sidney -- if he tells Sidney that Moscow wants _him_ to be the one to pull the trigger -- he is positive that he’s going to break.

Sidney’s face goes blank and he crouches down to turn his attention to his safe. He’s spinning the dial to put in the combination, and keeps having to start over. “The break-in, all those months ago. That was you?”

“My people, not me.” Zhenya stares down at his feet. “Pavel had photographs of you and me, he was going to…” He trails off and shakes his head. “Even if we weren’t, then…” Zhenya gestures between them, then starts over. “Truth not matter to Pavel. What he would have done would have ruined everything. Send me to fucking Siberia, maybe. Too much risk, had to give him something.”

Sidney doesn’t answer for a long while as he fusses with the lock. “You should have told me earlier,” is all he says as he finally gets the combination right. _You should have told me before I let you fuck me_ , is what Zhenya thinks he means, but he’s not interested in asking for clarification.

A sad smile crosses Zhenya’s face. They’re wasting precious time here, but Zhenya can’t even make himself care. If the KGB’s going to kill him, there’s not much he can do about it, no matter how good he thinks he is at disappearing. “Never a good time. What, you think we have coffee first day, I’m tell you life story? ‘Evgeni Malkin, officer for KGB, pleased to meet. Work with me, I give you shit, outdated intel, play own game under nose.’”

Sidney stands, strapping on his holster and sliding back into his suit jacket. “Your intel _was_ terrible,” he says, voice thick. “At first.” He glances up at Zhenya and quirks the tiniest smile.

“I didn’t expect--” Zhenya gestures at the space between them and pauses. “I didn’t expect you. _Us_.” He’s reluctant to admit that Sidney’s half of the reason he chose to start passing real information, not just the useless scraps that Moscow wanted him to feed the Americans, so this is as close as he’ll get.

“Well.” Sidney checks his gun, then holsters it, too, kicking the safe shut. “Neither did I.” He straightens his jacket and tries to fix his tie, only making it worse.

“Hopeless,” Zhenya says, and he could mean anything. The situation, _them_ , what they have, what they risk by being together. Right then, though, he means Sidney’s tie. He tucks his gun into the holster at his back and moves closer into Sidney’s space. He reaches up to fix the tie, adjusting the knot and tightening it, before smoothing Sidney’s collar and lapels back into place.

Sidney’s holding his breath, staring up at Zhenya with his dark eyes; Zhenya’s hands rest against Sidney’s chest for a moment, then slide up to bracket his face. They watch each other for a long moment before Zhenya leans forward, capturing Sidney’s lips in a fierce kiss. It’s hard and not romantic in the slightest -- Zhenya is just so _angry_ that this is what his life has been reduced to, important conversations condensed into a few stolen moments before he flees to save his own life -- but Sidney gives back as good as he gets. When they break, Sidney’s hands are bunched in Zhenya’s shirt, and they’re both breathless.

Zhenya presses his forehead against Sidney’s, eyes closed, as he tries to calm himself. He doesn’t mean to say what he says next, blurting it out instead. “Come with me,” he says impulsively. “Come with me, Sidney.”

Sidney’s fingers twitch in Zhenya’s shirt. “Come _where_?”

“Anywhere. Not matter. We run together, start over somewhere else.” Now that he’s said it, he desperately wants Sidney to say yes. “We both know how, we know how to disappear.” Zhenya can’t keep his hands to himself as he stands before Sidney; they skate up over his face, thumb brushing his lips, fingertips sliding across high cheekbones.

The longer it takes for Sidney to say anything, the more desperate Zhenya gets. “Don’t make me beg, Sidney,” he whispers. “Just say yes, come with me.” He cups Sidney’s face in his hands, stoops just slightly to be on eye level with him. “They’re going to _kill_ you, order already out, is only matter of time.” His hands tremble ever so slightly against Sidney’s face.

Sidney still says nothing. He reaches out and presses a hand to Zhenya’s chest, right over his madly beating heart, and offers him a sad, knowing smile. “They told you to do it, didn’t they?”

One last secret, and there it is. Zhenya closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to see the look on Sidney’s face when he admits it. He can’t even find the words, he just swallows heavily and nods.

Zhenya startles when he feels Sidney’s fingers wrap around his right hand, and he opens his eyes to watch what Sidney’s doing. He drags Zhenya’s hand down, away from his face and to the space between his arm and his body. Sidney presses Zhenya’s hand against the grip of his holstered gun, curls his fingers around it to draw. “Then do it,” Sidney says, rocking back on his heels so that Zhenya has no choice but to slide the gun out.

“What? No!” Zhenya chokes out. “I come here to warn you, to get you out, not -- not _this_.” The gun feels heavy in his hand, but Sidney doesn’t give him a chance to drop it. He uses Zhenya’s shock against him and twists his arm up so that the gun presses against the underside of Sidney’s chin.

“Eliminate me, you live to see another day, right?” Sidney has Zhenya’s hand trapped as he forces his finger up against the trigger. “I know how this game works, Zhenya, and we play it all the time. You think you’re the first person they’ve done this to? Just because we’re _different_ doesn’t mean that they haven’t been waiting to play this card and see what side you fall on.” His grip is tight, so tight, overlapping Zhenya’s. Zhenya can’t break it, not without risking pulling the trigger. “I don’t think I’d mind so much. Better you than someone who wants to make me suffer.” He sounds so calm, and it unnerves Zhenya.

“I’m not going to do it,” Zhenya says, a note of desperation creeping into his voice. “Just -- we put gun away, Sidney. We find a car and drive away. This not how it has to end.”

Sidney forces his own head back as he presses the gun up more firmly against his chin. Zhenya can see his skin go white around the edges of the barrel, and he winces. “It will be okay.” Sidney sounds nearly bored as he tries to force Zhenya to do the unthinkable. “You’ve done it before, haven’t you?”

Zhenya exhales, a low, shaky breath. “Yes, but always traitor, double agent, liar. Always someone like _me_. Make it easy when they say this person trying to destroy country. Easy, when they tell me is deserved. Never someone I know,” Zhenya admits. “Never someone I love.”

Through it all, Zhenya’s never once said the word _love_ to Sidney, and it takes them both by surprise. “Now?” Sidney asks incredulously. “You, fucking-- now?”

Zhenya shrugs and lets his arm go limp, forcing Sidney to hold up the weight. “Why not now? No other time. I’m not do, Sidney. You want die? Then you pull trigger. If I wanted, I shoot you through bathroom door and go home. I won’t do it. You not _dare_ put this on me.”

“You can still win this game,” Sidney whispers, but his hand gets looser around Zhenya’s. “They’ll send you back home, give you another boring desk job. You’ll still be alive, you won’t be running for your life.”

“It won’t be worth it.” Slowly, Zhenya raises his free hand and rests it on top of Sidney’s, fingers just barely wrapping around his. “Even if you not come with me, I’m know you still out there. I do this…” He shrugs, and works his fingers underneath Sidney’s as he talks. “I’m do this, I know there’s no more hope. Live, see family again, not worth if I’m know you dead.”

Ever so slowly, he pries Sidney’s hand free of his, then takes a long step back as he unloads the gun. “You come with me. You run on your own, you go back to FBI and tell them all, but I’m not kill you because Moscow said they go easy on me if I’m do. Moscow _never_ going to go easy on me. Only one thing I’m good for is lesson. One shot, _bang_ , show everyone what happens when you sell KGB secrets.”

Sidney frowns. “You never sold me anything,” he says. “I never paid you.”

Despite everything, Zhenya chuckles. Leave it to Sidney to be pedantic _now_ of all times. “No, which means I’m even worst. I’m give up secrets for _love_. But KGB never admit one of their own is _like that_ , not even for ruin my name, or yours.”

Sidney exhales and closes his eyes, seeming to deflate right there in the middle of the hallway. Zhenya wants nothing more than to protect him, but even that he’s failed at.

“Will you be okay?” Zhenya asks. “Do you understand why I’m not do what you ask?”

Slowly, Sidney opens his eyes and nods. He rolls his shoulders, like he’s shaking off the whole idea he’d just presented to Zhenya. Zhenya hesitates, then extends the bullets and empty gun back out at Sidney.

“I’m not coming with you,” Sidney says, hands hovering over his weapon. “I can’t. I can still do good here.”

“I know,” Zhenya says sadly. “I’m not surprise.”

“If I go now to the Bureau, they might be able to get me into a safehouse, away from here, before your people come after me.” As he speaks, he slowly regains his calm, collected demeanor. Gone is the man who moments before was resigned to accepting his own death. It’s a little surreal, but Zhenya isn’t surprised. He and Sidney have been in each other’s pockets for long enough now that he hardly expected anything else. Sidney takes the weapon back, slides the bullets into place, and holsters it again. “They’ll hide me, reassign me. It will be fine. I’ll do what I can for you, but if you’re going underground, well. My eyes and ears can only reach so far, especially if it’s not my assignment any more.”

“I _know_.” Zhenya’s face scrunches up; this isn’t how he thought their goodbye would go.

It’s Sidney’s turn to try to be a comfort and he closes the distance between them, letting his hands press flat against Zhenya’s chest. Zhenya’s arms come up automatically, wrapping around Sidney’s waist to hold him close. “I’ll find you,” Sidney says, and he leans forward, pressing his forehead to Zhenya’s shoulder. “I’ll find you, when I can.”

Zhenya doesn’t want to ask how Sidney’s going to do that. He doesn’t even have the first clue of where he’s going, he just knows that he’s got to get away from here. He doesn’t ask, and he doesn’t care; he’s going to cling to a fantasy where Sidney finds him and they carve out an improbable life with one another. Maybe in the wilderness, far away from anyone who would want to hurt them, far away from politics and mind games and the constant threat of war and terror.

It’s a good fantasy. Maybe it will get him through today and the next, and all of the days after that.

Zhenya ducks his head, presses a kiss to Sidney’s hair. “We should go,” he whispers reluctantly.

“I know.” Sidney doesn’t pull away and Zhenya doesn’t let go.

“You should finish job I’m start in here,” Zhenya adds. That gets Sidney’s attention.

Sidney shifts his weight back into his heels and looks up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Already make it look like I’m break in. You want head start from KGB, then make them think real hard if I’m do job or not.” Zhenya releases Sidney, ignoring the stricken noise that escapes Sidney’s throat and walks back through the house, beckoning for Sidney to follow him.

“What are you doing?” Sidney asks, sidestepping around the mess that Zhenya continues to make worse as he shoves into every piece of furniture he comes across.

“Look like struggle,” he says, pausing to crouch before his bag. He paws through it before finally coming up with a silencer for his gun. “Don’t play dumb, you know what has to happen.” Zhenya stands up, connects the silencer, and aims to the left of Sidney’s head. “Don’t move.” Without warning, pulls the trigger three times, firing into the wall just over Sidney’s shoulder. To Sidney’s credit, he barely flinches, just looks back behind him at the holes bored into the plaster.

Zhenya lowers the gun and heads back down the hallway, with Sidney trailing after him. He swings the bathroom door shut, takes a few steps back again, then aims and fires. Inside the closed room, glass shatters. Zhenya looks back over his shoulder at Sidney, who just shrugs, then steps forward and throws his shoulder into the door, smashing it open.

“Alright, enough,” Sidney says as Zhenya rubs his shoulder and surveys the damage. “You need to go. Any other suggestions?”

Zhenya flips the safety on his gun, watches Sidney for a long moment, then reaches in his pocket. “Catch,” he says, and lobs something at Sidney -- a heavy lighter, emblazoned with the KGB logo.

“What’s this for?” Sidney flips it open, running his finger over the wheel and watching the flame that sparks.

Zhenya crosses the room to pull Sidney in close, and kisses him. This could be the last time, he knows full well, and he wants to make it count but he keeps it sweet and soft, borderline chaste for all they’ve been through. When he breaks away, he presses another soft kiss to Sidney’s temple. “Burn it down,” he whispers.

Sidney nods, and Zhenya holds on for a long moment before stepping back. His vision swims, but he refuses to wipe at his eyes. He takes Sidney’s free hand in his. “Stay safe, find me when can.”

“I will,” Sidney promises. He sounds like he means it, and Zhenya chooses to believe it. “Now go.” He squeezes Zhenya’s hand one last time, then lets go. “If you need a car, take the one from Bob Peters, to the left. He’s gone by now, and the garage is real easy to break into.”

“Thank you.” Zhenya says, voice cracking. It’s just like Sidney, to use their last moments to help him out. “For everything.” Zhenya takes one step backwards, then another. “You be good.” Another step. Sidney follows, but at a distance, one hand pressed over his mouth, like he’s trying to keep something in. “Take care of yourself.”

Sidney doesn’t speak anymore, just nods along with Zhenya’s words. Before either of them know it, Zhenya’s on the threshold of the ruined front door.

“Be good,” he says again, and then he forces himself to turn and go.

He doesn’t look back. He can’t do it, he _can’t_ , no matter how badly he wants to keep Sidney in sight, watch him in the doorway until he can’t see him anymore.

He’s _not_ going to look back, but as crouches down in front of Bob Peters’ garage door, he gives in to the urge to look over his shoulder. Zhenya swears he sees the lick of flames through the living room window.

Not Sidney, just flames and smoke.

 

*

 

In Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, a tiny house sits nestled behind a copse of trees, far from the road. Zhenya hadn’t expected to wind up in Canada, but when he ran out of safe houses up the east coast, he decided to give Canada a try.

Against all odds, Canada’s worked for him.

He sticks out like a sore thumb in Cole Harbour, although his accent raises less paranoid eyebrows here than it ever did back in D.C.. He mostly keeps to himself -- life is easier that way, given that he’s still waiting for a caravan of his former KGB colleagues to speed up his driveway at any given moment.

Zhenya’s life may be more sedate now, but that doesn’t mean he’s ever let his guard down.

So when he’s on his front porch late one afternoon, flipping idly through a book he’s already finished reading, and he hears the rumble of a car rolling up his gravel driveway, he’s immediately on alert. He sets the book on the ground and stands up, edging towards the front door to pull it open. There’s a hunting rifle propped up just inside the house, and Zhenya doesn’t intend to go down without a fight 

The car breaks through the first wave of the treeline and Zhenya stares at it. The fact that it’s only one car doesn’t mean anything. Zhenya’s run that operation before: send in a decoy to distract your target while everyone else slides into place. The car rolls to a stop halfway up the driveway and as the driver’s door swings open, Zhenya’s hand wraps around the stock of the rifle, pulling it close.

The driver’s picked a perfect place to stop because they’re still hidden by the trees and blurred out by the glare of the setting sun. Zhenya has no doubt it was intentional, so he hoists the rifle up, butt pressing into the front of his shoulder as he steadies himself and takes aim.

Footsteps crunch up the gravel driveway, slow and steady.

“Stop,” he says, then repeats himself in Russian, just to be sure. “Stop, no closer.”

The driver takes two more steps, stepping out from the worst of the glare, then obeys and raises his arms. “Zhenya,” he says softly, and Zhenya’s aim falters. “I found you.”

Zhenya adjusts his aim, down and to the right, then takes a step forward, then another until he’s right at the edge of the porch. He _knows_ the man standing before him, legs spread, hands up, fingers laced behind his head. He _knows_ him. He just didn’t think he was ever going to see him again.

“Sidney,” he says, barely above a whisper. Zhenya lowers the rifle completely, stooping to set it on the porch, then moves out into the yard. Sidney’s stayed put, hands still in the air, so it’s up to Zhenya to close the gap. “Is really you?”

Sidney looks like a complete mess. His clothes hang a little looser from his frame, his hair’s longer, he badly needs to shave -- but Zhenya has never loved him more. It’s been three years since Zhenya fled D.C., two years since he settled in Cole Harbour, and he hasn’t stopped thinking about Sidney for a single day.

“In the flesh.” He shrugs, then slowly starts to lower his arms. Zhenya nods and waves his hand at him, allowing it.

Zhenya can’t quite close the gap between them, not yet, so he stays in place on his front yard, toes curling in the grass. “How you find?” There’s an entire _globe_ to search for Zhenya, and Sidney’s still managed to track him right here. He realizes his hands are shaking, and he jams them in his pockets to hide them.

“You told me, once, do you remember?” Zhenya shakes his head, so Sidney continues. “It wasn’t long after we first met. I was telling you about growing up here, about having no worries, just being outside all winter, playing shinny until my father had to drag me back in, and you, you said if you ever had to give it all up, that you’d like to try having a life like that, that it was so different from where you grew up, that it sounded beautiful.” Sidney shuffles awkwardly from foot to foot, still not advancing any closer.

“And I heard a rumor from one of my contacts. Strangest thing, Zoya Durova tracking me down in Pittsburgh of all places. I wasn’t even working under my real name and she found me anyway, insisted that I see her. She wouldn’t tell me much, just kept telling me I had to go north.” Sidney pushes his fingers through his hair, messing it up even worse. “So now it’s my turn to give it all up. Turned in my gun and badge, I’m done. Thought I’d take a chance up here, see if I had any luck. See if I could find you again.” He scrubs a cautious hand against his face, and Zhenya realizes that Sidney’s tearing up, gathering at the corners of his eyes. “You were easy to find, once I got up here. Not too many other 6’3” ex-KGB agents with a quick temper living in Cole Harbour, _Sasha_.”

Zhenya laughs, sounding a little broken. Of course Zoya tracked Sidney down. Zhenya doesn’t know what else he expected. “Can’t be Zhenya, make too easy for them. Still bounty on my head. Thought real Sasha maybe not care.” The real Sasha might be the only reason Zhenya had enough time to make it out of D.C., and he’s never going to forget that.

Sidney makes the smallest of movements forward, a fractional shuffle of his feet. “I met your neighbor down the street, Mrs. Carson, at the post office. She directed me up here.” Another inch closer. “You might want to have a talk with her about not giving strangers directions to your house, by the way.” He laughs nervously and swipes a hand against his eyes again.

“She usually know better, but.” Zhenya takes a small step of his own. Inch by inch, they’re closing in on one another. “I’m tell her, first day I meet, I’m keep to self here, not look for visitors, so you turn them around. But someday, I tell her, a man come look for me. I tell her about you, say, if you see this man, you tell him where I am.” He takes a deep breath, barely keeping his own tears at bay. “I'm two years in Cole Harbour, and Mrs. Carson still keep look-out for ‘Sasha’s friend’.”

“It’s been a very long time,” Sidney says.

“It has.” Zhenya’s breath hitches in his throat. Another inch forward. He could reach out and touch Sidney, if he wanted to. He would, if he didn’t think he would crumble the second they made contact.

“But I’m here now,” Sidney adds. At the same time, Zhenya takes another step forward and says “come _here_ ,” arms outstretched.

Sidney closes the distance between them and hurls himself into Zhenya’s open arms. “I’ve missed you so much,” he says against Zhenya’s throat.

“Shut up and kiss me,” Zhenya says.

He takes Zhenya’s face in his hands and pulls him down into a kiss. Zhenya’s lips part easily under Sidney’s, and he could almost cry out in relief.

Sidney tastes like stale, bitter coffee, Zhenya thinks as his tongue slips past Sidney’s teeth, tasting him, drinking him in.

Sidney tastes like _home_.

“Never leave,” Zhenya whispers against Sidney’s skin when he pulls away.

“Never,” Sidney agrees.

“We stay here, get a dog maybe, make own family.” His hands clutch tight at the back of Sidney’s shirt, unwilling to let him move away even by a fraction. “Never leave.”

Sidney laughs against Zhenya’s neck. “Whatever you want.”

“ _Whatever_ I want?”

Sidney pushes at Zhenya’s chest, getting him to back up towards the house. “Anything.”

Zhenya lets himself be pushed along, easily navigating the steps up to the porch. “We stay in bed, rest of day,” he decides, tugging Sidney along by the front of his shirt. “Maybe tomorrow, too.” Zhenya swings open the front door and pulls Sidney inside.

“Maybe we won’t even make it to the bed,” Sidney says, and his grin is wide and wicked.

Zhenya kicks the door shut behind Sidney. “Is fine idea,” he says, and it’s the last coherent thought he has as he finally, _finally_ , welcomes Sidney home.

**Author's Note:**

> Some final thoughts:
> 
> As you can probably guess, almost all of the details about being spies are completely made up and/or blown out of proportion. While “fake” defectors like Zhenya actually existed throughout history -- as well as “fake” defectors who decided #YOLO was their best option and actually went over to the other side -- I sincerely doubt that any of them went about their missions in quite the same manner as he does here.
> 
> In addition to doing a lot of Googling for facts that, quite frankly, have probably put me on a watch list somewhere, the following served as inspiration and otherwise great resources for writing this fic:
> 
>  _In Confidence: Moscow's Ambassador to Six Cold War Presidents_ , by Anatoly Dobrynin (1995; Crown / 2001; University of Washington Press). While much of the information gleaned from this book didn’t make it into the fic or was purposefully altered to suit my purposes, it’s a fascinating read anyway. For a look at the actual building that still houses the Russian ambassador today, and which served as the Soviet Union’s embassy during the time this story takes place, go [here](http://nullrefer.com/?http://www.russianembassy.org/page/residence-of-the-russian-ambassador-to-the-u-s).
> 
>  _Spymaster: Startling Cold War Revelations of a Soviet KGB Chief_ , by Tennent H. Bagley (2013; Skyhorse). A look at both sides of the Cold War, this book serves as a memoir from top KGB officer Sergey A. Kondrashev, written by Bagley, a former CIA officer. At least one plot point was lifted from this book: the KGB’s break-in to get at Sidney’s daily journal echoes an anecdote shared about General Robert Grow (pp. 43-45). A KGB operative broke into Grow’s apartment and photographed the contents of his personal diary. (Grow was later court-martialed as a result of this incident.) I sincerely doubt, however, that Grow was was kind-of sort-of thrown under the bus by a double agent who also wanted to bang him. (But, you know, history is strange, so.)
> 
> I would be remiss without mentioning my visit to the [International Spy Museum](http://nullrefer.com/?http://www.spymuseum.org/), which, in addition to being incredibly fun, also provided great background for historical espionage techniques, technology, and more.
> 
> Roosevelt Island is a charming slice of nature just minutes away from the hustle and bustle of DC. If you’ve never been, please rest assured there are plenty of spots for spies in love to hide and snuggle along the Potomac. 
> 
> In addition to druidspell’s mix, you too can make your own soundtrack to this fic! Listen to Sharon Van Etten, The National, Shovels & Rope, and The Antlers for all the parts that give you sad, angsty feels. Listen to loads of French pop and rap (Zaz, Stromae, Maitre Gims) for the rest. 
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](http://othersideofthis.tumblr.com/) for more shenanigans.


End file.
